Details You May Have Missed in the Bladen County Absentee Ballot Scandal

I remember reading that Joshua Malcolm, who is now chair of the NC State Board of Elections, said he had been dissatisfied with foot-dragging by the US Attorney for the Eastern District, Robert Higdon, who has supposedly been looking into absentee ballot harvesting going back to 2016. Just found out that Rev. Mark Harris's 28-year-old son works for Robert Higdon. We would assume that young Mr. Harris is recused from anything to do with this case.

While it's not clear that the ballots in question would change the result of the election, contrary to statements made by Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of the NCGOP, it is definitely possible. While the 679 absentee votes Rev. Harris received in Bladen and Robeson counties are not enough on their own, there may have been as many as 3,400 absentee ballots requested but not returned in those counties. There's evidence that some -- many? -- of the people supposedly requesting absentee ballots were African-American and that some -- many? -- of them did not know they had requested an absentee ballot. Some of those folks turned their ballots over to operatives working for McCrae Dowless. The clear implication is that African-American voters were being used as pawns in a fraudulent scheme.

Cynthia Shaw, the director of the Bladen County Board of Elections, packed up her office as this scandal was unfolding last week and left, never to return. She apparently decided to take her accumulated sick leave a month before she was scheduled to retire. Perfectly understandable that she might want to go to the beach as this firestorm consumes her office, but it's also mighty convenient/inconvenient, depending on which side you're seeing this from.

Chief fraud suspect McCrae Dowless has a previous fraud conviction in 1992. He reportedly stumbled across a dead person while out picking posies, took out an insurance policy on him, and then collected $165,000 on his death. Dowless has worked as a get-out-the-vote harvester for at least eight other candidates besides Rev. Mark Harris, or at least he's been paid as a "consultant." He was also convicted of felony perjury in 1990, which you may want to keep in mind as he begins to defend himself and his activities.

What did Rev. Mark Harris know, and when did he know it?

Rev. Mark Harris, swearing on a stack of Bibles?