The House unanimously passed Senate Bill 214 Wednesday, March 13, to drop voter identification requirements from 2019 elections, and sent it to Gov. Roy Cooper. The bill removed student IDs as an acceptable photo ID for casting ballots. The first time university-issued student identification and state agency employee IDs could be used to vote would...
Crowded is an understatement. Twenty-six candidates from four political parties lined up to seek the vacant 3rd U.S. Congressional District seat in a July 9 special election. The State Board of Elections said it is the largest complement of congressional candidates in memory. It comprises 17 Republicans, six Democrats, two Libertarians, and one Constitution Party...
Candidate filing for North Carolina’s fraud-scarred 9th U.S. Congressional District will begin next week for a May 14 primary, and the general election is set for Sept. 10. The State Board of Elections approved the special election schedule Monday, March 4, the same day candidate filing began in the 3rd U.S. Congressional District special election...
Leslie McCrae Dowless, the alleged mastermind of an election fraud scheme in the 9th Congressional District, was arrested Wednesday and jailed in Wake County. Dowless refused to testify last week at a State Board of Elections evidentiary hearing into widespread election fraud last year in the 9th District. Dowless is the alleged mastermind behind an...
Former Gov. Pat McCrory isn’t planning to go to Washington. Yet. The Republican announced Monday on his WBT radio program he would not seek the GOP nomination in the special election to fill the vacancy in the 9th U.S. Congressional District. He said his “fire in the belly” was in doing the daily radio show....
Does beleaguered Republican Rev. Mark Harris have a prayer of winning a new 9th U.S. Congressional District election? With his congressional campaign in debt, his integrity under siege, his health in question, and a criminal investigation over corruption gathering steam, some political observers are doubtful. It’s also unclear he’ll seek the congressional seat a third...
The Rev. Mark Harris has thrown in the towel on his hopes of going to Congress. He called for a new election in the 9th U.S. Congressional District as evidence mounted of election fraud in Bladen County during the 2018 election. The State Board of Elections agreed, voting unanimously to hold a new election in the...
Assistant U.S. Attorney John Harris testified Wednesday he warned his father, Republican U.S. Rep.-elect Rev. Mark Harris, it was unwise to hire Bladen County political operative McCrae Dowless. But his parents shunned his advice. Mark Harris is in a legal skirmish to be seated in Congress. In the third day of a State Board of...
Andy Yates, the principal campaign strategist for Republican U.S. Rep.-elect Rev. Mark Harris, said he now questions whether McCrae Dowless legally rounded up absentee mail votes that helped to push Harris to an unofficial 905-vote win over Democrat Dan McCready in the 9th U.S. Congressional District. Yates, founder of Red Dome Group, said he had...
The political operative at the heart of the 9th Congressional District scandal won’t tell his story under oath — yet. McCrae Dowless, the main person of interest in an alleged ballot harvesting ring that helped Republican Rev. Mark Harris defeat Democrat Dan McCready in November, appeared under subpoena at a State Board of Elections evidentiary...
Figuring out the logistics for a special election to fill the vacancy left by the passing of Rep. Walter Jones Jr., R-3rd District, won’t be easy, said Gerry Cohen, former special counsel to the General Assembly. North Carolina has its second congressional vacancy after Jones died Feb. 10. The 9th Congressional District is also without...
