State election officials in North Carolina said on Monday that a political operative for Republican Mark Harris orchestrated a “coordinated, unlawful, and substantially resourced absentee ballot scheme” in the 9th Congressional District last year, hiding evidence of the operation as it unfolded and obstructing the state’s investigation after the election. The state board’s executive director, Kim Strach, told the five-member board that Leslie McCrae Dowless, a long-time political operative from Bladen County, paid workers to collect absentee ballots from voters, a felony in North Carolina.
