A North Carolina Republican running for the state’s attorney general has dismissed a significant election fraud incident in 2018 that resulted in a new election as “a fairly minor illegal election harvest.”
Dan Bishop, a congressman whose district is outside Charlotte, made the comments on an April 1 episode of the Reclaiming America podcast.
In 2018, Mark Harris, a Republican, won the race to represent North Carolina’s ninth congressional district. But shortly after the election, the North Carolina State Board of Elections voted to overturn a congressional election and call a new one after an investigation found that a Harris operative illegally collected absentee ballots from voters. Harris decided not to run again and Bishop ultimately won the seat.
The operative, Leslie McCrae Dowless, allegedly instructed those who worked for him to falsely sign as witnesses for voters even though they had not witnessed the voter filling out the ballot and it appeared as if the voter returned the ballot himself, when that was not the case used to be. People who worked for Dowless said they collected hundreds of mail-in ballots and in some cases were assigned to fill out ballots for local candidates. In North Carolina, a voter must ask two witnesses or a notary to sign an absentee ballot envelope, and it is illegal for anyone other than the voter, an immediate family member, or a legal guardian to return the ballot.
Dowless was charged with several crimes for his conduct in the 2016 and 2018 elections. He died in 2022, before the case went to trial. Several others involved in the scheme pleaded guilty to felonies.
Bishop said in the interview that the election commission “under the control of the Democrats” had decided to overturn the election. Although Democrats had a 3-2 majority on the board at the time, the vote for new elections was unanimous. Mark Harris, the Republican candidate who won, also called for a new election, and the state Republican Party supported Harris’ decision not to run again. Harris, who won a Republican primary for Congress earlier this year, has since taken a stand, falsely accusing Democrats of stealing the election from him.
A spokesperson for the bishop did not return a request for comment.
The kind of fraud that took place in North Carolina — which is extremely rare — is exactly the kind of activity that Republicans across the country have been trying to crack down on, passing laws that make it harder for third parties and non-family members to recover turn. absentee ballots on behalf of a voter.
Bishop voted against certifying the 2020 election. During the same April 1 interview, he acknowledged the enormous power he would have over election issues if elected attorney general this fall. “I will say that I believe the most important impact an attorney general can have is in the area of election integrity, ensuring that there is an appropriate response to the kinds of mischief that has occurred in election lawsuits” , he said. said.
