Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. (January 3, 1956 – April 24, 2022) was a Republican political operative from the
state
State most commonly refers to:
* State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory
**Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country
**Nation state, a ...
of
North Carolina
North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...
. Dowless at the center of a fraud investigation following the
2018 North Carolina's 9th congressional district election. In February 2019, North Carolina's election commission determined that the doubts surrounding the integrity of the election were sufficiently serious that the election results should be invalidated and a new election held. In 1990, Dowless was convicted of felony
perjury
Perjury (also known as forswearing) is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding."Perjury The act or an insta ...
, and in 1992, he was convicted of felony
insurance fraud
Insurance fraud is any intentional act committed to deceive or mislead an insurance company during the application or claims process, or the wrongful denial of a legitimate claim by an insurance company. It occurs when a claimant knowingly attem ...
.
Early life
Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. was born on January 3, 1956, to Leslie McCrae Dowless Sr. and Monnie Margie Pait. He was the only child they had together, but had ten older half-siblings his parents had from other relationships. He was raised on a
Columbus County, North Carolina, peanut farm until he was 10 years old, when his family moved to
Bladenboro.
Career
Insurance fraud conviction
In 1990, Dowless was convicted of felony
perjury
Perjury (also known as forswearing) is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding."Perjury The act or an insta ...
, and in 1992, he was convicted of felony
insurance fraud
Insurance fraud is any intentional act committed to deceive or mislead an insurance company during the application or claims process, or the wrongful denial of a legitimate claim by an insurance company. It occurs when a claimant knowingly attem ...
.
He was sentenced to two years in prison for the latter charge, and served six months.
[
]
Political involvement
Dowless began working in politics in 2006, focusing on get out the vote
"Get out the vote" or "getting out the vote" (GOTV) describes efforts aimed at increasing the voter turnout in elections. In countries that do not have or enforce compulsory voting, voter turnout can be low, sometimes even below a third of the e ...
efforts. In 2006, he worked for Rex Gore's campaign for district attorney
In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, county prosecutor, state attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or solicitor is the chief prosecutor or chief law enforcement officer represen ...
of Bladen County. Over the next couple of years, Dowless was paid thousands of dollars for getting out the vote efforts and, at times, for managing the campaigns of eastern North Carolina candidates Wesley Meredith, Al Leonard, Ken Waddell, and William Brisson.
In 2010, Dowless worked for Harold Butch Pope's campaign for district attorney.[
Dowless himself was elected to the Bladen County Soil and Water Conservation Board in 2012. He was then re-elected in 2016.] Also in 2014, Dowless worked for Jim McVicker's campaign for sheriff. McVicker won by a small margin, and allegations were made about mishandled absentee ballot
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* ''The Absentee'' (1915 film), a 1915 American silent film directed by Christy ...
s.
In the 2016 elections
Africa
Benin Republic
*2016 Beninese presidential election 6 March 2016
Cape Verde
* 2016 Cape Verdean presidential election 2 October 2016
Chad
* 2016 Chadian presidential election 10 April 2016
Djibouti
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for U.S. House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...
, Dowless worked for Todd Johnson in the Republican Party primary election
Primary elections or primaries are elections held to determine which candidates will run in an upcoming general election. In a partisan primary, a political party selects a candidate. Depending on the state and/or party, there may be an "open pr ...
. Johnson finished third behind incumbent
The incumbent is the current holder of an office or position. In an election, the incumbent is the person holding or acting in the position that is up for election, regardless of whether they are seeking re-election.
There may or may not be ...
Robert Pittenger
Robert Miller Pittenger (; born August 15, 1948) is a businessman and American politician who was the U.S. representative for North Carolina's 9th congressional district from 2013 to 2019. The district included several outer portions of Charlot ...
and Mark Harris. After the election, Dowless filed a complaint with the North Carolina Board of Elections suggesting that Johnson's opponents had committed fraud with absentee ballots. In turn, two voters filed complaints of voter fraud against Dowless.[
]
2018 North Carolina's 9th congressional district election
After noticing that Todd Johnson had won the absentee vote in Bladen County in 2016, Mark Harris had a consulting company, Red Dome Group (Lead Partner Andy Yates) hire Dowless to work on his 2018 campaign.[ Harris also introduced Dowless to a Republican candidate running for ]Charlotte City Council
The Charlotte City Council is the legislative body of the City of Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte and forms part of a Council–manager government, council–manager system of government. The Council is made up of eleven members and the Ma ...
in 2017.
In the 2018 primary election, Harris defeated Pittenger. Doubts later surfaced regarding Dowless' role in absentee balloting in the primary; Harris received 437 of the 456 absentee votes cast in Bladen County.
In the general election against Democratic Party nominee Dan McCready, Harris was the unofficial winner by 905 votes. However, the North Carolina State Board of Elections
The North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) is an agency of the North Carolina state government charged with the administration of the elections process, as well as campaign finance, and lobbying disclosure and compliance. The State Board ...
refused to certify the results of the election. Dowless was accused of paying workers to illegally collect absentee ballots from voters[ and was considered a "person of interest" in the investigation over mishandled absentee ballots. On February 4, the newly seated state elections board set an evidentiary hearing to begin on February 18.
]
Ballot fraud
On the first day of the evidentiary hearing, state elections director Kim Strach said the evidence would show that "a coordinated, unlawful and substantially resourced absentee ballot scheme operated in the 2018 general election". Lisa Britt, the daughter of Dowless's ex-wife as well as one of his employees, said Dowless and his associates had collected ballots from voters. She then testified that the ballots were kept at Dowless' home or office for several days or longer, and that operatives would fill in votes on parts or all of some ballots to favor Republican candidates in the election.[ She also said they had forged some witness signatures and that they had followed the direction of Dowless to take steps to avoid detection, including controlling the color of the pens used for the witness signatures, signing a different person's name as a witness to avoid having the same person as witness to too many ballots, making sure to deliver no more than nine ballots in each visit to the post office, and making sure to use post offices near where the voters lived.][ Britt also said she had personally voted despite being on probation for a felony conviction and that she had taken advice from Dowless about how to do that.][
Dowless himself was present at the hearing but refused to testify without being granted immunity from prosecution.]
New election
On February 21, the Board of Elections unanimously voted to order a new election in the congressional race. The Board also ordered new elections in two other contests for local offices. On February 26, 2019, citing ill health, Harris declared that he would not compete in the new election.
Arrest
On February 27, 2019, Dowless was arrested after being indicted by a Wake County
Wake County, officially the County of Wake, is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, its population was 1,129,410, making it North Carolina's most populous county. From July 2005 to July 2006, Wake Count ...
grand jury. Dowless was charged with multiple counts related to illegal ballot handling and obstructing justice in the 2016 and 2018 elections. An additional four people who worked for him were also charged. In July, additional charges of perjury and solicitation to commit perjury were added in a superseding indictment.
Fraud conviction
On April 7, 2020, Dowless was indicted on federal charges "tangentially related to the ballot probe" being investigated by the State Board of Elections. In the indictment, unsealed on April 21, prosecutors alleged that Dowless claimed disability and retirement benefits in 2017 and 2018, but failed to tell the Social Security Administration about over $132,000 in payments he received for working on the Harris campaign and one other campaign in the 2018 cycle.
In June 2021, Dowless pled guilty to two charges. He was convicted of government theft and defrauding the government. He was sentenced to six months in prison and fined more than $8500.
Death
Dowless died on April 24, 2022, at his daughter's home in Bladen County following a diagnosis with lung cancer. The legal charges against him were formally dropped by prosecutors upon his death. A funeral was held at Center Road Baptist Church on April 30 in Bladen County and he was subsequently buried. Journalists Michael Graff and Nick Ochsner wrote, "Dowless was a lot of things to a lot of people. To Democrats, he was despicable, a Republican who tried to undermine democracy. To Republicans, he was a low-level fall guy who proved how easy it was to undermine democracy. In his two-decade political career, Dowless had worked for candidates on both sides of the aisle, and in the end he was put out of both."
References
Works cited
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dowless, McCrae
1956 births
2022 deaths
Deaths from lung cancer in North Carolina
People from Bladen County, North Carolina
American people convicted of fraud
Political campaign staff
North Carolina politicians convicted of crimes
North Carolina Democrats
North Carolina Republicans
American people convicted of perjury
Prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government