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A story of election fraud, cynicism, and the death of accountability.

After the 2018 election, in North Carolina’s Ninth Congressional District, Charlotte pastor and Republican Mark Harris appeared to have eked out a victory over his Democratic opponent, Dan McCready. After provisionals were counted, Harris led by just over 900 votes. Then, people started noticing something was off in one of the counties.

In Bladen County, Harris won by a significantly larger margin than any other Republican on the ballot. A deeper dive revealed that most of his margin came from mail-in ballots. Republicans requested only 19% of the ballots, but won 60% of the vote. In addition, the return rate on mail-in ballots was far less than other counties, indicating something happened to some of the ballots.

Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman announced that her office was already investigating voting irregularities in the county from previous elections. Bladen had a long history of shady dealings. A man named McCrae Dowless kept showing up in the middle of them.

The State Board of Elections voted not to certify the result pending an investigation. By the end of November, the AP rescinded its call of the race and then McCready retracted his concession. Republicans had a different take.

Executive Director of the North Carolina Republican Party Dallas Woodhouse demanded that the votes be certified and called on the chair of the state board of elections to resign, claiming he was “hyper-partisan.”

Chair Andy Penry did just that, saying, “The investigation of criminal conduct and absentee voting fraud in the 2018 Republican primary and 2018 general election in Congressional District 9 is a matter of vital importance to our democracy. I will not allow myself to be used as an instrument of distraction in this investigation.”

The board, including Republicans, still voted to delay certification.

As the scandal unfolded, the fraud became increasingly evident. The Bladen County board of elections had apparently counted absentee ballots before election day and shared the information. It was too much for even Woodhouse and GOP State Party Chair Robin Hayes. They both said that if the accusations were true, they would support a new election in the district.

Then came a stunning reversal. Just a week later, they demanded the board certify the election and blasted the board for not resolving the issue fast enough. It would be the beginning of a two-month attack on the state board of elections, attempting to undermine its credibility in the midst of a massive election fraud scandal.

Woodhouse and Hayes likely folded under pressure from their right flank and Washington Republicans.

Over the next two months, the details of the scheme became clear. The Harris campaign hired Dowless who, in turn, hired friends and family members to collect absentee ballots in violation of state law. Some of the people he hired admitted to filling out ballots that supported Republicans. In addition, the return rate for African Americans was far lower than for white voters, indicating many may have been discarded.

Still, even up until the day of the initial hearing, Republicans bashed the state board and called for Harris to be seated. Harris, for his part, repeatedly denied knowing about the fraud.

The hearing was dramatic. At the time, I wrote:

Yesterday saw stunning developments in the State Board of Elections hearing in NC-09. The day played out like a Greek tragedy with a son exposing the sins of a supposedly pious father. In an apparently surprise move, Mark Harris’s son, John, took the stand. Neither Harris, his wife nor Dan McCready’s lawyer, Marc Elias, knew he was going to testify. John, an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, directly contradicted statements made by Harris and his campaign team.

In emails and phone conversations, John warned his father numerous times that McCrae Dowless was crooked before he was hired to work on the Harris campaign. John went as far as to email his father the statute that says collecting absentee ballots is a felony. His father dismissed the concerns, saying he believed McCrae Dowless when Dowless said everything was above board. The picture that emerges is one of a man so consumed by ambition that he’s willing to accept lies to further his own quest for power.

John had turned over the emails in pre-trial testimony, assuming the board already had them from the campaign. But the Harris campaign had never shared them, despite a subpoena requiring them to do so.

As his son testified, Mark Harris sat in the audience with tears running down his cheek. John concluded his testimony by saying he loved his mother and father but would have done things differently.

After the testimony, Spectrum’s Tim Boyum posted a video of Mark Harris vehemently denying that anyone had ever warned him about Dowless.

The next day, Mark Harris took the stand. He said that he was not mentally or physically up for testifying. He admitted to making misstatements and said that he believed a new election was warranted. He could have either lied to the board, admitted he had been lying in the past, or walked away. He chose the latter.

The state board of elections voted unanimously for a new Congressional election.

Again, I wrote:

The trial underscored the political inclinations of the current GOP. Both Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse and Party Chair Robin Hayes defended Harris and the campaign to the end despite overwhelming evidence that fraud occurred. They attacked the press, the Democratic Party and implied that the work of the SBOE was part of a partisan smear. In another era, the party leadership would have been more measured and cautious, asking people to reserve judgment until the investigation was complete.

Despite Harris’s admission and the preponderance of evidence, Republicans kept up the attack on the state board of elections, trying to undermine its mission and credibility.

Robin Hayes warned McCready, “You will be held responsible for…your role to erase more than 283,000 legal votes by citizens of the Ninth Congressional District.” Dallas Woodhouse accused the state board of elections on Twitter of wanting to “get Dowless so bad after a decade they chose a sting operation over protecting the democracy.” Even Mitch McConnell weighed in, blaming Democrats for the fraud.

The fraud was heavily documented. North Carolina reporters Michael Graff and Nick Ochsner wrote a book, The Vote Collectors: The True Story of the Scamsters, Politicians and Preachers Behind the Nation’s Greatest Electoral Fraud, detailing their work to uncover the scheme. The podcast “Serial” covered it in “The Improvement Association.”

For years, Republicans had insisted the state had rampant voter fraud but never proved it. When their side was caught in the act, they denied it existed.

In the special election that summer, state Senator Dan Bishop defeated Dan McCready. After January 6, Bishop was a vehement defender of Trump’s baseless voter fraud claims.

McCrae Dowless died of cancer before he went to trial.

Six weeks after Harris called for a new election, the FBI announced that Republican Party Chair Robin Hayes was under investigation for bribery. He pled guilty to lying to the FBI and agreed to cooperate with the investigation. Donald Trump pardoned him on January 20, 2021.

Dallas Woodhouse now works for the North Carolina State Board of Elections, serving as liaison to county boards of elections.

Mark Harris is now the Congressman for North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District.