The stepdaughter of a Bladen County political operative detailed how she said his ballot harvesting operation worked on the first day of a hearing Monday into voting irregularities in the unresolved 2018 election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District.
Lisa Britt, whose mother was married to Leslie McCrae Dowless in the early 1990s, testified that Dowless paid workers to collect absentee ballot request forms and mail-in absentee ballots and drop them off at his office and his home.
She said Dowless and others made copies of request forms and had specific criteria for matching pen colors, where to mail ballots from, how many to mail at a time and even how to place stamps to avoid setting off alarms.
“He fussed at me for putting on stamps upside down,” Britt testified before the N.C. Board of Elections. “We didn’t want to throw up a red flag.”Dowless, at the center of the controversy, declined to testify late in the day Monday. His attorney, Cynthia Adams Singletary, said he would only testify if granted immunity. When the board refused, Dowless was allowed to leave.