On Wednesday, the Wake County district attorney’s office said that Leslie McCrae Dowless — the North Carolina Republican political operative at the center of an absentee ballot fraud scheme that led the state to order a re-run of a congressional election — was arrested and charged with obstruction of justice.
Dowless was charged with three felony counts of obstruction of justice, two counts of conspiring to commit obstruction of justice and two counts of possession of absentee ballots, according to the district attorney’s statement. He is due to appear in court on March 25.
The indictment follows a state investigation into voting irregularities in North Carolina’s 9th congressional district that found evidence Dowless had organized illegal absentee ballot collection to tip the race in favor of Republican candidate Mark Harris.
