One of Bladen County’s representatives to the U.S. House once thought to be done may not be after all.
U.S. Rep. Robert Pittenger, beaten by Mark Harris in the Republican primary this spring, said over the weekend he’s awaiting a January hearing before announcing if he’ll run again should a new primary be ordered for the 9th District.
Pittenger’s loss was brought into examination when voting irregularities were uncovered in Bladen County. The state Board of Elections is awaiting results of an investigation and plans an evidentiary hearing Jan. 11. David Rouzer is the other representative for the county.
At issue are mail-in absentee ballot irregularities and allegations of election fraud in Bladen and Robeson counties. McCrae Dowless, a two-time convicted felon known as a political operative in Bladen County, is at the center of an investigation. Subpoeanas have been issued for the campaign of Harris, plus the campaign of Bladen County Sheriff Jim McVicker and to Red Dome Group.
Neither Harris, Dowless, McVicker or Red Dome, a political campaign strategy company, have been accused of wrongdoing by the state board.
The possibilities of what may happen are far-ranging. The 9th District race for Pittenger’s seat, in which Harris leads Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes, has not been certified and apparently will not be by the Jan. 3 convening of the new Congress. The seat will be vacant.
Democrats won enough seats to take back the U.S. House anyway, but this seat has been held by a Republican since January 1963. The district has been reconfigured over time, and now stretches roughly from Fayetteville to Charlotte, with northern Bladen County included.
It is in that region that the probe has focused on Dowless and what he did or did not do in “Get Out To Vote” efforts.
“I have received calls from a number of friends in the last couple days,” Pittenger said in an interview. “My instincts are that I just think we ought to wait for this evidentiary hearing and let all the facts come out. Then after that, maybe I can give more consideration to that.”
The General Assembly last week passed legislation, that at press time still awaited a decision to go into law from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, requiring new primary elections in addition to a new general election if the state elections board decides ballot irregularities or other problems cast the true outcome into doubt, forcing a new election.
That’s created a measure of chaos from Republicans and Democrats alike. Republicans haven’t collectively rallied around Harris; McCready rescinded a concession acknowledgement, but his party cannot yet target who he might face should there be a new election.
Harris, for example, could be viewed as damaged goods for questions about his relationship with Dowless. Pittenger might want another shot; he had 17 mail-in absentee votes in Bladen County in the primary to 437 for Harris, who narrowly won by 828. And former Gov. Pat McCrory’s name was mentioned during the weekend as a possible new candidate in the race.
On the Democratic side, there was this from U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield: “It’s fundamentally unfair to a candidate who has raised and spent millions of dollars in anticipation of Mark Harris being the opponent, to have to go through that again with a different opponent. Dan McCready shouldn’t have to face two different opponents.”
But a new primary, presumably, would include a new filing period.
As for the state GOP, its executive director pleaded to be neutral.
“Every candidate who enters that primary, if there is one, will have a chance to make their case,” Dallas Woodhouse said.
The Harnett County Republican who led last week’s legislation through, Rep. David Lewis, said a new primary makes sense.
On Friday, Harris was interviewed by Charlotte television station WBTV and gave his first offering on the scandal. The Baptist preacher said he hired Dowless but didn’t know he was doing anything wrong. Dowless has worked for both Republicans and Democrats over the years in what are labeled in campaign finance records as “Get Out To Vote” campaigns.
“He was being vouched for by a number of leaders down there,” Harris said in the interview. “I had no reason to think that what he was doing was illegal.”
He said Dowless described the process for him.
“I remember him saying specifically that they were not to take a ballot,” he said. “They were not to touch a ballot.”
An affidavit offers a stark contradiction. According to a report from television station WECT and released to the Charlotte Observer by the state’s Democratic Party, Kenneth Simmons said he was at a campaign event in Dublin with his wife for a challenger in the sheriff’s race. The Bladen County Republican says he spoke with Dowless there.
“During the conversation, we noticed that Mr. Dowless had in his possession a large number of absentee ballots. … He stated he had over 800 ballots in his possession.”
Asked why they had not been turned in, Simmons said Dowless told him, “You don’t do that until the last day because the opposition would know how many votes they had to make up.”
“My concern was that these ballots were not going to be turned in,” Simmons said.
Bladen County’s past elections have been dragged through the mud, in part at least because those who pointed out problems didn’t see response to allegations. Among the issues were absentee ballots and security for access to the county’s Board of Elections office.
Gary Bartlett served as the executive director of the state Board of Elections from 1993 to 2013. Marshall Tutor was a lead investigator of the board from March 2003 to March 2018.
They say Bladen County wasn’t the only place with problems when it came to trustworthy elections. But Tutor called it the worst.
They named other counties in addition to Bladen in saying that the State Bureau of Investigation as well as local and federal law enforcement officials would not act when presented evidence. Tutor called it “rotten to the core” with absentee votes, buying votes, even people getting drugs for votes.