There seems to be no end to the chicanery in North Carolina's Ninth District. It's pretty clear now that Leslie McCrae Dowless was paid a lot of money to harvest absentee ballots from Democratic voters and fail to turn them in. But until now, Republican candidate Mark Harris (who also happens to be a Baptist "minister") had done a fair job of distancing himself from the fray.
But no more. Sources tell The Washington Post that Mark Harris sought out and hired Dowless in spite of staff warnings about his questionable methods.
According to the report, "Harris sought out the operative, Leslie McCrae Dowless, after losing a 2016 election in which Dowless had helped one of Harris’s opponents win an overwhelming share of the mail-in vote in a key county." Oh, well! Let's wait for the part of the report where Harris says he did it because it was a winning strategy, shall we? Or what's good for the goose? Or something similar, I'm sure.
The issue at stake now is whether Harris knew he was engaging in "improper tactics." I think we can give that the big "OH YEAH HE DID," don't you think?
From the report:
That question is also roiling the state Republican Party, whose leaders had rallied around Harris, a 52-year-old evangelical pastor from the suburbs of Charlotte. Party leaders are now backing away from Harris and trying to limit the fallout of a scandal that has delayed certification of the last undecided federal contest of the 2018 election cycle.
Well, hecky darn. Maybe they should stop being roiled and just go ahead and concede the election. Or have another one. But they should damn well do something and do it soon. At this point, failing to resolve this is just a stall which cannot stand.
