GOPer Swept Up In NC Election Fraud Probe To Be Interviewed By Investigators

Mark Harris speaks to the media during a news conference in Matthews, N.C., Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2018. Harris is leading Dan McCready for the 9th congressional district in a race that is still too close to call. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
FILE- In this Nov. 7, 2018, file photo Mark Harris speaks to the media during a news conference in Matthews, N.C. North Carolina election officials agreed Friday, Nov. 30, to hold a public hearing into alleged “num... FILE- In this Nov. 7, 2018, file photo Mark Harris speaks to the media during a news conference in Matthews, N.C. North Carolina election officials agreed Friday, Nov. 30, to hold a public hearing into alleged “numerous irregularities” and “concerted fraudulent activities” involving traditional mail-in absentee ballots in the 9th Congressional District, apparently in two rural counties. Republican Harris leads Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes from nearly 283,000 cast in all or parts of eight south-central counties reaching from Charlotte to near Fayetteville. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File) MORE LESS
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North Carolina election officials investigating fraud claims in a U.S. congressional race there will interview on Thursday the Republican House candidate whose unofficial victory has been called into question with the allegations.

The candidate, Mark Harris will meet agency investigators Thursday morning in Raleigh, a lawyer for the North Carolina State Board of Elections told TPM.

The board declined to certify Harris’s victory last month, citing irregularities in the absentee ballot count, and the board has been investigating the allegations since.

Harris, in a  campaign press release earlier this week, said that he looked “forward to sitting down with the staff from the State Board of Elections” and to “answering any and all questions they have.” Nonetheless, he and other North Carolina Republicans argue that his race should be certified and he should be seated with the new Congress because the board hasn’t shown proof that the alleged fraud scheme was large enough to change the outcome of the election.

The allegations center around a local operative, Leslie McCrae Dowless, who has been linked to Harris’ campaign and who was running an absentee ballot operation in the district. Witnesses have told news outlets that they received absentee ballots they didn’t apply for and that workers for Dowless showed up at their doors to collect them. North Carolina law allows only the voters themselves or their close relatives to submit absentee ballots.

Harris has denied having knowledge of any wrongdoing in the race.

 

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