Reporter Finds Second Woman Who Was Paid To Collect Absentee Ballots In North Carolina House Race

A second woman has come forward claiming that a Bladen County, N.C., electioneer paid her $100 to collect absentee ballots from voters in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District during last month’s midterm elections.

Cheryl Kinlaw told WSOC 9, a local news station in Charlotte, N.C., that Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr., a GOP operative who has been convicted of felony fraud charges, paid her to collect ballots in their district, adding that Dowless “has been doing it for years.”

Kinlaw admitted that she never mailed the ballots she collected from voters and that she instead handed them over to Dowless.

Her comments come a day after another North Carolina woman, Ginger Eason, told the news station that Dowless paid her between $75 and $100 to pick up ballots.

Both women said they have no idea what Dowless did with the ballots.

Like the woman I interviewed yesterday, Kinlaw never mailed the ballots. She gave them to McCrae Dowless. She doesn’t know what he did with them afterward. She says she has no doubt Dowless wanted Mark Harris and Sheriff Jim McVicker to win. pic.twitter.com/8zQeZvFo4g

— Joe Bruno (@JoeBrunoWSOC9) December 4, 2018

Dowless, the Bladen County Soil and Water Conservation District supervisor, has been named twice in sworn affidavits as someone who worked for Republican candidate Mark Harris’s campaign as an independent contractor.

The Hill notes:

In November, Democrat Dan McCready conceded to Harris in their House race when he was down by approximately 700 votes.

But the elections board decided not to certify the results, citing “claims of irregularities and fraudulent activities related to absentee by-mail voting.”

WSOCTV reported that it has discovered what appears to be a targeted effort to illegally pick up ballots in Bladen County. The news station noted that it consistently found the same people signing as witnesses for the people voting, something it notes is unconventional. Eason was listed as signing as a witness for 28 submitted and accepted absentee ballot envelopes.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) who was recently elected Democratic caucus chairman, said Tuesday that it “appears increasingly likely” that Republican operatives “stole a House seat” through election fraud.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has told Harris that he won’t be sworn into the House if allegations of election fraud persist into 2019, when Democrats take a majority in the House.