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By Associated press
RALEIGH, NC – Election officials in North Carolina are investigating fraud in the last indecisive poll in Congress and find that votes are counted several days before polling day in the rural county, at the center of the disputed results.
Election officials also said the elections were tainted with falsified signatures, blank ballots that the consultants could fill in, and endangered documents.
The state election office heard on Tuesday the election officials who admitted the results of the Saturday before polling day, after which the in-person vote had ended. This is contrary to good practice.
Two election officials said they could see who was leading early in the 9th Congressional and Sheriff's races, but did not tell anyone.
The State Electoral Officer stated that the investigators had found no evidence that the results of the votes had been communicated to other people.
The election committee decides whether Republican Mark Harris wins the parliamentary elections in November or whether a new election is necessary. Harris leads the Democrat Dan McCready, but the contest was not certified because the results were suspected.
The state council has been investigating allegations of irregularities since before the elections last November, when Harris had concluded with an unofficial 905-voice lead. The council could decide as early as Tuesday whether the allegedly falsified signatures, the white votes and other problems are unfortunate but tolerable, or whether to order new elections in the 9th district.
Investigators should seek the testimony of dozens of other constituents in rural Bladen and Robeson counties as well as those who worked with political agent Leslie McCrae Dowless. The consultant hired by Republican Mark Harris for his campaign was accused by the state's chief electoral officer of running an illegal ballot collection operation for the GOP candidate.
On Monday, a key witness testified that she had engaged in a fraudulent and illegal activity involving mail ballots during the race as part of a voting operation for the benefit of Harris .
In a candid testimony before the Election Committee, Lisa Britt said that she had been paid to collect ballots by correspondence in the 2018 elections by Dowless. Britt stated that some of the ballots she had collected were unsealed and incomplete and testified that she had filled in the blank options for Republican candidates – a vote violation confession contrary to the North Carolina law.
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