How did you spend Presidents Day? Me, I spent part of it watching the livestream of a meeting of the North Carolina Board of Elections. (This wild life is killing me.) At issue was the disputed election in that state's Ninth Congressional District, a wild-kingdom tangle of penny-ante ratfcking that somehow produced Republican preacher Mark Harris as the winner over Democratic candidate Dan McCready by 905 votes.

The election, however, hangs fire at the moment because of the actions of the Harris campaign in connection with a guy named Lesley McCrae Dowless, a veteran Republican operative in poor, rural Bladen County, down in the south-central part of the state. The key witness was a woman named Lisa Britt, whose mother had been married to Dowless for a spell. (Dowless was in the committee room, glowering from the gallery like Uncle Teardrop in Winter's Bone. He has refused to testify unless granted immunity, which, as it happens, he desperately needs.)

Britt described in detail a clumsy yet effective scheme to ratfck McCready through the abuse of absentee ballots, which Britt "harvested" on behalf of Dowless who, it appears, was working as a contract employee of a consulting firm connected with the Harris campaign, and who, investigators say, made $130,000 to do so. Together, they all engaged in what Kim Strach, the executive director of the Board of Elections called "a coordinated, unlawful and substantially resourced absentee ballot scheme operated during the 2018 general election in Bladen and Robeson counties.”

Leslie McCrae Dowless. Getty Images

Strach, a Republican appointee of former Republican governor Pat McCrory, was a compelling presence at the hearing. She carefully led Britt through the details of the ratfcking scam while Britt, who appeared at the hearing without immunity and without a lawyer, walked deeper and deeper into the swamp. From the Raleigh News and Observer:

Britt, a convicted felon who had previously spoken to investigators, said she didn’t think Dowless would have her do anything illegal. Britt, who testified without immunity and without a lawyer present, admitted to multiple election fraud activities. “I don’t want to get him in trouble. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble,” Britt said. “Mr. Dowless has been a father figure to me for 30 years. There’s certain things you would place trust in. He’s not going to put you out here to do something illegal.”

But Britt outlined a process by which she and other workers often signed as witnesses for ballots they did not see signed, traced over signatures to make sure the ink colors matched that of the voter’s, dated forms incorrectly, forged signatures and filled in down-ballot races on some ballots. It is illegal in North Carolina for anyone outside of a close relative to handle a voter’s absentee ballot.



Her testimony was backed by another witness, Kelly Hendrix, who testified that she collected ballots and turned them into Dowless with only one of the two required witness signatures. The forms were signed later, Hendrix said, by people who did not see them collected. Britt also told the board that Dowless—on at least two occasions—tried to influence her public statements and testimony. As controversy swirled over the election results last year, Britt said Dowless called her and other workers together for a meeting at his house.“As long as we all stick together we’ll all be fine, because they don’t have anything on us,” Britt said Dowless told them.

Britt's mother, who is also Dowless's ex-wife, testified that she'd overheard a phone conversation between Dowless and candidate Harris. By all rights, Harris should be cooked, but the board needs four votes to call for a new election, and the three Democrats on the five-member board need a Republican to jump ship to avoid a deadlock. What is clear is that, no matter what the North Carolina board decides, the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives should refuse to seat Harris if it comes to that. Really, enough is enough.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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