The state board of elections has refused to certify the Republican candidate’s narrow victory in the ninth congressional district

Allegations of election fraud have thrown a North Carolina congressional race into limbo, sparking investigations and leaving control of the national seat undecided weeks after the midterm elections.

In the state’s ninth district, Republican Mark Harris finished ahead of Democrat Dan McReady by 905 votes.

But the state board of elections refused on Friday to certify the results – instead moving to investigate “claims of numerous irregularities and concerted fraudulent activities related to absentee-by-mail ballots”, said Joshua Malcolm, now the chair of the board. Officials could potentially order a new election.

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The charges – also the subject of a criminal investigation – center on the activities of a political operative in Bladen county, Leslie McCrae Dowless. Dowless, who has a criminal record and was working for the Republican campaign, appears to have been running an operation to collect absentee ballots from voters. That is illegal in North Carolina.

“He’s like [someone] out of central casting. You should be looking for someone to play him in the movie,” said Gerry Cohen, a former special counsel to the North Carolina general assembly and election law expert. “Every place has some sort of political character. This guy is that, on steroids.”

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Several voters said in affidavits, submitted to the board of elections by the state Democratic party, that a person they didn’t know showed up at their homes to collect their absentee ballots.

Voter Datesha Montgomery said she handed over her ballot to a woman who came to her door after filling in votes for sheriff and board of education, but not for the congressional seat. “She stated the others were not important. I gave her the ballot and she said she would finish it herself,” she said.

Two women told WSOC 9 that Dowless paid them to collect ballots. Cheryl Kinlaw said she was paid $100 to pick up ballots, extra money she needed for Christmas presents. “I feel bad now that I know that it wasn’t legal, but I didn’t know at the time,” Kinlaw told the station, adding she dropped off the ballots to Dowless at an office building. “I don’t know what happened to them. He had stacks of them on his desk.”

Dowless turned in at least 592 absentee ballot request forms in Bladen county, according to documents posted by the board of elections.

What’s not clear is what the operative did with completed ballots once he collected them from voters. But numbers suggest something may be amiss.

“The most disturbing thing is the issue of, did this third party dispose of ballots, throw them out and never return them based on how the person may have voted?” Cohen said. “If operatives were basically throwing out ballots from black and Native American voters, they were basically stealing votes.”

Michael Bitzer, a Catawba College political science professor, crunched the numbers and found that in Bladen county, only 19% of absentee ballots sent in by mail came from registered Republicans. But 61% of those ballots were cast for the Republican, Harris.

It’s not statistically impossible that that result could happen legitimately, but it’s a pattern not seen in any other county.

“It’s an odd situation,” Bitzer said.

Further, many of the absentee ballots requested in Bladen county and nearby Robeson county were not returned at all. In Robeson, nearly two-thirds of the absentee ballots, or 1,180 ballots, weren’t returned, according to Bitzer’s analysis. In Bladen, it was 495 ballots, or 40%. That compares with a quarter of absentee ballots not returned statewide.

An analysis by the News & Observer found that the ballots of minority voters went unreturned at a disproportionate rate.

“I don’t think we’ve seen this kind of absentee ballot fraud in North Carolina since the late 1940s,” said Cohen, the election law expert.

The board of elections could order a new election if they find irregularities swayed enough votes to change the outcome of the election, or that fraud has tainted the results of the race overall and cast doubt on its fairness.

If that happens, the uncertainty would stretch on beyond January, when the new member of Congress is set to be seated.

The seat is now held by Representative Robert Pittenger, who was defeated by Harris in the GOP primary.

“These allegations are incredibly serious and, if true, they outline a calculated effort to illegally undermine our free elections and to sway the election in favor of a specific candidate,” Wayne Goodwin, chair of the North Carolina Democratic party, said at a press conference this week.

He blasted Republicans for hypocrisy for their push for voter ID laws and frequent warnings about voter fraud. “The hypocrisy is unmistakable,” he said. “If Republicans are truly concerned about the integrity of our elections, they will not stand in the way of uncovering the truth.”

Harris has welcomed an investigation but said not enough votes were affected to change the outcome of the election. “The State Board of Elections should act immediately to certify the race while continuing to conduct their investigation. Anything else is a disservice to the people of the Ninth District,” he said on Twitter.

The state Republican party has threatened legal action if Harris is not certified the winner.