North Carolina: Elections board hears concerns about voting systems | Dan Kane/Raleigh News & Observer

After a three-hour hearing that included representatives of three voting system vendors demonstrating their wares to State Board of Elections members, the board Sunday night chose to wait a day before deciding which ones to certify for counties across the state to use. Board chairman Bob Cordle said after a nearly hour-long closed session that waiting a day would allow Ken Raymond of Winston-Salem, the one member of the five-person board who was unable to attend Sunday, to vote. The board will reconvene at 7 p.m. Monday. “We just think it’s better to have all five of us here,” Cordle said. The meeting was held on the evening before the annual North Carolina elections conference, which runs Monday and Tuesday at the hotel. Board spokesman Pat Gannon said roughly 700 elections officials from across the state are expected to attend.

North Carolina: Board of Elections to decide on new voting machines | Rad Berky/WCNC

In an unusual weekend session, the North Carolina State Board of Elections will meet Sunday to certify the companies who want to sell new voting machines for use in elections next year. This follows the decision to return the state from electronic voting to equipment that uses paper ballots. Mecklenburg County’s Elections Director Michael Dickerson said the county is one of a few that already keeps a paper record, but whichever new system is chosen will go a step farther. “We have a paper record of what you voted but they want to give each voter a paper ballot before you finalize your vote,” said Dickerson. South Carolina this week took the wraps off the new equipment voters there will be using. After finalizing choices on a touchscreen, the machines will print a paper ballot with a barcode. Voters will then check their paper ballot and place it in a scanner. The scanner takes an image of the ballot, counts it and keeps the original in a locked ballot box.

North Carolina: Elections board may pick new voting machine options Sunday | Travis Fain/WRAL

The State Board of Elections will meet Sunday evening for a certification vote on what new voting machines will be allowed in North Carolina. The long-delayed decision will follow a demonstration of the various options from companies hoping to do business, or more business, in the state. Local boards of election decide what systems to buy, but the state board has to decide first whether various options meet state requirements. “If they meet the statutory requirements, they’re to be certified,” Board Chairman Robert Cordle said Tuesday. The board plans to meet at 5 p.m. in the Triangle Ballroom at the Cary Embassy Suites on Harrison Oaks Boulevard in Cary, not in the usual meeting room at the board offices.

North Carolina: New elections loom without decision on voting machines | Travis Fain/WRAL

Voters in large swaths of North Carolina may use touchscreen voting equipment again for the 2020 presidential elections, despite the legislature voting in 2013 to phase out these machines in favor of paper ballots. Legislation to delay that for a third time in the last 6 years is pending at the General Assembly, and the state’s elections director has backed the delay as the State Board of Elections weighs what new machines to sign off on. Separate legislation is also moving through the General Assembly to require all the companies that want to sell voting machines in North Carolina to put up a $17 million bond, a change that at least one competing vendor sees as a way to discourage competition, and the current vendor says is only fair. Meanwhile the federal government is probing poll books used in Durham in the 2016 elections for evidence of foreign tampering. State elections officials are also doing a deeper dive on the three companies hoping to sell voting machines to local boards of election, probing whether any have foreign ownership. State officials asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to assist with that and report back on any potentially troubling ties, State Board member Stella Anderson said Friday. “I doubt (they find anything), but you never know,” Anderson said.

North Carolina: ‘A risk to democracy’: North Carolina law may be violating secrecy of the ballot | Jordan Wilkie/The Guardian

North Carolina may be violating state and federal constitutional protections for the secret ballot in the US by tracing some of its citizens’ votes. The situation has arisen because North Carolina has a state law that demands absentee voting – which includes early, in-person voting as well as postal voting – is required to use ballots that can be traced back to the voter. The laws are in place as a means of guaranteeing that if citizens cast multiple ballots during early voting or that if ineligible residents – like non-citizens or people who have not completed sentences for criminal offenses – cast ballots, those votes can be retrieved and removed. Likewise, if a voter casts an early ballot then dies before election day, that ballot can then be discounted. But voting rights advocates think the North Carolina law breaks one of the most sacred tenets of the democratic system: preserving the secrecy of the ballot. “Anytime you can link a ballot back to the individual voter, that’s a violation of the secret ballot,” said Caitriona Fitzgerald, the chief technology officer for the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center.

North Carolina: Senators question DHS on North Carolina voting equipment malfunctions | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) are demanding answers regarding voting equipment malfunctions in North Carolina during the 2016 presidential election, as election security continues to be a contentious topic on Capitol Hill. Klobuchar and Reed sent a letter to acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan late last week asking him to explain the steps taken by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to investigate the “unexpected behavior” of voting equipment made by VR Systems during the 2016 election in Durham County, North Carolina. On election day, electronic poll books in this county made by VR Systems malfunctioned, leading the county to switch to paper poll books. It is not clear if this was the result of a cyberattack or a different cause.  The letter from the two Democratic senators was sent in the wake of the release of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which concluded that Russian officers “targeted employees of [redacted], a voting technology company that developed software used by numerous U.S. counties to manage voter rolls, and installed malware on the company network.”

North Carolina: Russian hacking in Durham? DHS looking into machines used in 2016 election | Mona Tong and Rose Wong/The Chronicle

The Department of Homeland Security is investigating the equipment—provided by a company allegedly targeted by Russian hackers—used in Durham County during the 2016 election. On Election Day in 2016, certain voting machines malfunctioned by incorrectly telling voters they had already cast their ballot, leading affected polling stations to switch to paper poll books, according to the Washington Post. The equipment also asked some people for photo identification, which was not legally required at the time. This snafu created lengthy delays and led some precincts to extend voting hours. Durham County then tapped the cybersecurity company Protus3 to conduct an investigation into the situation in 2016. The firm concluded that poll workers caused the error for several voters, but it was inconclusive about the other issues and offered ideas for further investigation, leading North Carolina to deem the findings inconclusive.

North Carolina: Bill to spare DRE voting machines advances | Taft Wireback/Greensboro News & Revord

State legislators approved a bill Wednesday that could delay an estimated $8 million expense for Guilford County by giving its voting machines a temporary reprieve. The state House voted unanimously for HB 19, which would open the door for Guilford, Forsyth, Alamance and other counties to keep using “Direct Record Electronic” voting machines through the next general election. The current deadline for using such machines is December, which Guilford election officials estimate could cost the county about $8 million in the midst of a lean budget year. The new measure does not name Guilford specifically — or any other county — but it gives local officials statewide the option of asking their county election staff to seek a reprieve from the state Board of Elections in Raleigh.

North Carolina: State wants to know who owns voting-machine makers | Emery P. Delesio/Associated Press

North Carolina won’t clear voting-machine makers to sell their systems to county elections boards until it learns more about who owns them, the state’s elections board chairman said Friday. The decision comes amid worries of foreign election interference that have grown since special counsel Robert Mueller’s April report into Russian efforts to sway the 2016 presidential election. Mueller’s report “essentially says everybody should be concerned about this and everybody should be looking harder at a lot of these things to make sure we’re protected as best we can be,” said Robert Cordle, the head of the state elections board. “It’s just a matter of doing our due diligence now to make sure there are no problems.” The state board is giving the three companies that have already passed several rounds of screening until June 21 to disclose anyone holding a 5 percent or greater interest in their company, their parent company or any subsidiaries.

North Carolina: Concerns over voting machines underscores importance of election security | Justin Sherman/WRAL.com

Two weeks ago, Politico reported on a Florida-based election software company that may be unwittingly involved in election security problems in North Carolina. The company was targeted by Russian hackers in 2016 and this effort may have given the hackers remote access to a computer in Durham County that managed a voter list management tool. Now, North Carolina officials are delaying approval of new voting machines for use in the 2020 elections—due to uncertainty over the ownership of the machine suppliers in question. This underscores something that’s only recently come to the forefront of American attention: The abysmal state of election security in the United States. Many countries still use paper ballots to count votes. But in the United States, this isn’t required by law. Many states use electronic devices to count votes in elections. And their security is terrible.  At a 2018 conference, security expert Rachel Tobac showed how easily one can gain administrative access to an electronic voting machine, in-person, in under two minutes. Dozens of kids, at the same event, were likewise able to quickly gain illicit access to replica voting websites.

North Carolina: Election hacking: North Carolina officials won’t approve new voting machines | Raleigh News & Observer

North Carolina election officials were supposed to certify new voting machines on Thursday for millions of voters to start using in 2020. But they declined to make any decisions, citing uncertainty over who owns the three companies that were seeking approval to sell voting machines here. The state gave them until next week to divulge everyone who owns at least 5 percent of their companies or any parent or subsidiary company. “I believe this follows along with the cyber security concerns we have found in the Mueller report and other documentation that has been furnished to our board,” Robert Cordle, the chairman of the State Board of Elections, said Thursday when the board announced its surprise decision. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report indicated that a company that provides voting software in some North Carolina counties may have been compromised by Russian hackers in 2016. That company’s software can’t be used to change or record votes; it only deals with checking voters in to the polls.

North Carolina: With Guilford and Mecklenburg voting machines facing decertification, confusion looms for 2020 election | By Will Doran/Greensboro News & Record

Roughly a third of North Carolina voters use electronic machines with no paper ballots. But that might all change next year for the 2020 presidential election. Supporters of the change say it will help ensure election security, especially given reports from the FBI and other sources that the Russian government attempted to influence America’s 2016 elections and may have hacked into some U.S. voting software. But the switch has been held up for years, despite first being ordered in a 2013 law. Now, some officials — including some in Guilford County and the new state elections director — worry that there’s not enough time left to get new voting systems in place for the 2020 elections. Guilford County uses an electronic machine with a paper backup, said Chris Duffey, deputy director of the Guilford County Board of Elections. However, these DRE touch-screen machines, which use electronic ballot counting as opposed to paper tabulation, will be decertified by state law effective Dec. 1, he said. The law, adopted in 2013, aims to thwart cyber hackers who might have the skills to manipulate digital election results.

North Carolina: Laptops used in 2016 North Carolina poll to be examined by feds – after 2.5 years | Lisa Vaas/Naked Security

More than two and a half years after the fact, the Feds are finally going to investigate the failure of voter registration software – from a ­company that had been cyber-attacked by Russians just days before the November 2016 US presidential election – in the swing state of North Carolina. Politico has reviewed a document and spoken to somebody with knowledge of the episode, both of which suggest that the vendor, VR Systems, “inadvertently opened a potential pathway for hackers to tamper with voter records in North Carolina on the eve of the presidential election.” Specifically, VR Systems used remote-access software to connect for several hours to a central computer in Durham County so as to troubleshoot problems with the company’s voter registration software. In fact, election officials would come to find out that this was common practice, according to Politico’s source, in spite of the fact that election technology security experts agree that it opens up systems to hacking.

North Carolina: Is North Carolina rushing into major election changes? Some officials warn of confusion in 2020 | Will Doran/Charlotte Observer

Roughly a third of North Carolina voters use electronic machines with no paper ballots. But that might all change next year for the 2020 presidential election. Supporters of the change say it will help ensure election security, especially given reports from the FBI and other sources that the Russian government attempted to influence America’s 2016 elections and may have hacked into some U.S. voting software. But the switch has been held up for years, despite first being ordered in a 2013 law. Now, some officials — including the new state elections director — worry that there’s not enough time left to get new voting systems in place for the 2020 elections. The state’s biggest county, Mecklenburg, is one of the counties that will have to make the switch away from touchscreen voting machines. But officials there still don’t know what machines they might be allowed to buy as replacements, or how much they’ll cost. Meanwhile, the deadline to get new machines in place is coming up at the end of this year.

North Carolina: Federal Government To Check North Carolina Election Equipment Over Hacking Fears | Pam Fessler/NPR

The Department of Homeland Security has finally agreed to conduct a thorough inspection of election equipment used in North Carolina that was supplied by a vendor whose system was targeted by Russian hackers in 2016. It has been three years since the machines — laptops used to check in voters in Durham County — malfunctioned on Election Day, telling voters that they had already voted, even though they had not. The county took the laptops out of service that day and switched to using paper poll books, but what caused the problem has remained a mystery. It’s one of several remaining questions about what happened in the 2016 elections, the answers to which could help the U.S. protect itself against future cyberattacks. “This support may help to provide a better understanding of previous issues and help to secure the 2020 elections,” said Sara Sendek, a DHS spokesperson. She added that the agency “has no information that there is any previous or ongoing issues regarding elections systems” in the state.

North Carolina: Software vendor may have opened a gap for hackers in 2016 swing state | Kim Zetter/Politico

A Florida election software company targeted by Russians in 2016 inadvertently opened a potential pathway for hackers to tamper with voter records in North Carolina on the eve of the presidential election, according to a document reviewed by POLITICO and a person with knowledge of the episode. VR Systems, based in Tallahassee but with customers in eight states, used what’s known as remote-access software to connect for several hours to a central computer in Durham County, N.C., to troubleshoot problems with the company’s voter list management tool, the person said. The software distributes voter lists to so-called electronic poll books, which poll workers use to check in voters and verify their eligibility to cast a ballot. The company did not respond to POLITICO’s requests for comment about its practices. But election security experts widely condemn remote connections to election-related computer systems — not only because they can open a door for intruders but because they can also give attackers access to an entire network, depending on how they’re configured.

North Carolina: Karen Brinson Bell new North Carolina elections director, replaces Kim Strach | Will Doran/Raleigh News & Observer

Kim Strach, who has led the North Carolina Board of Elections since 2013, was dismissed by the board Monday. She will be replaced by Karen Brinson Bell. The vote was split along party lines, with the five-member elections board voting 3-2 in favor of replacing Strach with Brinson Bell. The board’s Democrats voted for Brinson Bell, while the board’s Republicans voted against her. “Our top priorities will be promoting voter confidence in elections and assisting the 100 county boards, the boots on the ground in every election,” Brinson Bell said in a written statement after the vote Monday. “I plan to roll up my sleeves and work with State Board staff to prepare for the important elections ahead.” She will start June 1.

North Carolina: State Board of Elections to oust executive director | WRAL

The new Democrat-controlled State Board of Elections will move to oust its longtime executive director, a Republican appointee, next week. Kim Strach, originally hired by the board former Gov. Pat McCrory appointed in 2013, has technically been on borrowed time since the new board formed in January. Soon after the board’s first meeting, state law gave members the authority to reappoint Strach or appoint a new director to a two-year term expiring in May 2021. That legislation was the result of a protracted court battle between Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Republican leaders in the General Assembly over appointments to the elections board. Democrats now outnumber Republicans on the board 3-2. It’s not yet clear whether the new executive director will replace Strach immediately or after some period of transition. Reached by phone Friday morning, State Board of Elections member David Black, a Republican, said the board planned to have a teleconference Monday to discuss Strach’s ouster. “The general move from the Democrats on the board is to replace her,” Black said.

North Carolina: Deferment on voting machines sought | Morganton News Herald

Things seem to be up in the air on new voting machines in Burke County, as well as other places in the state, that are required by state law. A resolution the Burke County Board of Elections passed earlier this month is asking the state General Assembly to delay requiring the voting machines used here to be decertified and new equipment to be purchased. Burke County currently uses touch-screen voting machines (direct-recording electronic voting machines) that have a paper trail. Current state law requires 22 counties, including Burke, to have their DRE voting systems decertified, which would force those counties to buy new voting equipment that use paper ballots. The law sets a deadline of Dec. 1, 2019, to decertify the type of voting equipment that Burke County uses, the resolution says. The local elections board resolution, dated April 9 and signed by all five Burke County elections board members, is requesting the state legislature vote to support deferring the decertification of its election voting machines until 2022. N.C. House Rep. Julia Howard, (R-District 77), introduced House Bill 851 on April 16 that would delay decertification until Dec. 1, 2021. The proposed bill was referred to the House committee on elections and ethics law on April 18. If it is approved in that committee, it will move to the rules, calendar and operations of the House. A similar bill — House Bill 502 — was introduced in the state House of Representatives on March 27 but it would only be for Alamance and Guilford counties. That local bill was referred on April 1 to the same committee as House Bill 851.

North Carolina: Board of Elections asking if North Carolina voting software company was hacked in 2016 | WSOC

The North Carolina State Board of Elections is asking a voting software company if it was hacked by Russian cyber attackers in 2016. The NCSBE wants to know if VR Systems is “Vendor 1” in the Mueller report. The report indicates that russian intelligence successfully “installed malware on the company network.” The letter from NCSBE asks VR Systems for “immediate, written assurance regarding the security” of its network. Nearly two dozen counties in the state used VR Systems in 2016, including Mecklenburg. “What we use it for on is the back end so that we can record provisional ballots, transfers, that sort of stuff that allows us to do it uniformly through 195 different precincts,” Mecklenburg County Board of Election Director Michael Dickerson said. VR Systems is based in Tallahassee and used to have an office in Matthews. Emails to the company were not returned.

North Carolina: Mueller report: Did Russian government hack 2016 North Carolina voting? | Raleigh News & Observer

The Mueller report released Thursday found that Russian spies successfully hacked into a U.S. voting software company during the 2016 elections, and North Carolina officials think there’s a chance it was software that’s in use here. The N.C. Board of Elections now has sent a letter to VR Systems, whose voting software was used by 21 North Carolina counties in 2016. The letter, which was first reported by WRAL, asks the company to “provide immediate, written insurance regarding the security of your network.” The Mueller report didn’t specifically name the company. But VR Systems confirmed in a written statement that it’s the company in question. The company’s software can’t be used to count or change votes. Instead, it manages the electronic polling books used to check in voters, to make sure people don’t vote twice. The Mueller report found that “Russian cyber actors in 2016 targeted” the company, and “installed malware on the company network.” Durham County, which had numerous problems and delays in the 2016 elections, was using the company’s check-in software at the time. The Mueller report does not go into the full extent of the hacking, and while it does say at least one Florida county was hacked, the report does not name any North Carolina successes for the hackers.

North Carolina: In wake of Mueller report, North Carolina elections officials want answers from electronic pollbook vendor | WRAL

North Carolina elections officials want to know whether an unnamed voting technology company that Robert Mueller’s report says was compromised by Russian hackers is the same firm that supplies poll book software to more than a dozen counties across the state. In a letter to VR Systems sent Thursday afternoon, State Board of Elections General Counsel Josh Lawson asked the company to provide “immediate, written assurance” about the security of its products, which came under fire two years ago when a leaked intelligence report named the company as the target of a Russian hacking attempt known as “spearphishing.” Mueller’s report, released in a redacted form Thursday morning, notes that, in August 2016, Russian intelligence officers targeted a “voting technology company that developed software used by numerous U.S. counties to manage voter rolls,” installing malicious code on the company’s network. The name of the firm is blacked out due to “personal privacy” exemptions. Lawson said, based on the leaked intelligence report and a separate 2017 federal indictment, that VR Systems was a target of the GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency.

North Carolina: Davidson County approves resolution regarding voting equipment | The Dispatch

On Tuesday, the Davidson County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted in favor of a resolution that asks the General Assembly to delay decertification of voting machines until the 2022 election. Davidson County uses direct record electronic voting machines that use electronic tabulation with a touch screen. A law passed in 2013 will decertify any system that doesn’t use paper ballots after Dec. 1. Jon Myers, chairman of the Davidson County Board of Elections, said the state prefers paper ballots because there are some who do not have confidence in the electronic voting system and that they would rather have individuals mark a ballot by hand. The county, along with 21 others, may have its voting machines decertified later this year. In the resolution, the Davidson County Board of Elections states that if its current equipment were decertified, the board would not have enough time for accurate testing, training and deployment in time for the elections in March 2020. “The legislation regarding the voting equipment requires that we test equipment before we can purchase,” Myers said. “So we would be required to test in the November municipal election before we can order. Even at best, there’s no way we could order before mid-November. … I think it’s a very difficult, if not impossible timeline to meet.”

North Carolina: Counties Face Tight Timeline To Comply With State Voting Law | WUNC

Counties across the state are working to beat a December deadline to replace touch-screen voting machines with models that use a paper ballot in order to comply with a 2013 state law. Twenty-five counties, including Mecklenburg, Guilford, Forsyth and Union, will need to upgrade all or some of their equipment. North Carolina State Board of Elections spokesperson Patrick Gannon said updating the equipment is important “to ensure that voters are confident that when they cast a ballot, that their choices are recorded properly and they can be audited on the back end if there are concerns about whether or not votes were counted properly.”  There is currently only one voting machine model that’s certified for use, but the State Board of Elections will meet soon to consider certifying additional models.  Gannon said counties making the switch need to test their equipment this fall ahead of the 2020 primary next March. “The counties must be able to test any new system in the municipal election in order for it to be used in an election next year,” he said.

North Carolina: Legislators seek reprieve for Guilford County voting machines | Greensboro News and Record

Ask and ye shall receive — or at least get a reasonable shot at receiving. Two local legislators introduced a bill this week approving more than two years of additional life for Guilford County’s voting machines, only a week after county leaders formally petitioned the General Assembly for just such help. If passed, the bipartisan measure introduced by state Reps. Jon Hardister, R-Whitsett, and Amos Quick, D-Greensboro, would give county taxpayers a reprieve on the estimated $8 million cost of replacing the county’s 1,400-plus machines. The measure also would apply to Alamance County, which faces a similar dilemma and an estimated $2 million in replacement costs. Hardister said Friday afternoon that he filed the bill with Quick and fellow Reps. Dennis Riddell, R-Snow Camp, and Frank Iler, R-Oak Island, after a conversation with Guilford County Board of Elections Director Charlie Collicutt.

North Carolina: Redistricting reformers hopeful about legislation this year | Associated Press

Lawmakers who want to reform the redistricting process in North Carolina say uncertainty over pending map litigation and the shaky balance of power at the legislature make them more optimistic their ideas will be voted on this year. House Democrats and Republicans filed legislation on Wednesday that would create an 11-member “nonpartisan” redistricting commission. The panel would propose new legislative and congressional maps to the General Assembly after each decennial census, the next one of which occurs in 2020. Lawmakers have filed similar bills in previous years, unsuccessfully. The House and Senate revise and approve General Assembly and congressional districts based on population changes from the census. For generations, majority parties have pushed through maps favoring their sides. When they were in the minority 10 years ago, many Republicans supported the idea of the commission. In the years since regaining General Assembly control, they largely have set the proposal aside.

North Carolina: There’s at least one special election coming to North Carolina soon | Roll Call

The death of North Carolina Rep. Walter B. Jones over the weekend opens up a safe Republican seat on the state’s east coast. The governor must call a special election for the 3rd District. But there is no statutory time frame, so the timing will be up to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. Further west, in the 9th District, voters are still waiting to hear whether there will be a special election for the vacant seat — the results of the 2018 election between Republican Mark Harris and Democrat Dan McCready have not been certified. The North Carolina State Board of Elections is holding an evidentiary hearing on allegations of election fraud on Feb. 18.

North Carolina: New board gets private preview of Congressional race probe | Associated Press

A reconstituted North Carolina elections board received a private preview Thursday of what investigators uncovered in their probe of absentee ballot irregularities in the country’s last unresolved congressional race. Chairman Bob Cordle said the new five-member State Board of Elections received a “full briefing” on findings in the 9th Congressional District race. The members met behind closed doors with attorneys and investigators for nearly four hours. Cordle said the findings will be released publicly at a hearing Feb. 18. He said the board will vote at the hearing’s close on whether to certify the 9th District results, order a new election or take some other step.

North Carolina: Millions of Voting Records Sought, Hundreds Given | Associated Press

North Carolina officials said Wednesday they will turn over nearly 800 voter files sought last year by a federal investigation believed to involve voter fraud that sought millions of records. The state elections board said it is responding to grand jury subpoenas by providing records for 289 people who previously registered to vote in eastern North Carolina and another 500 people outside the region. The state board had called the subpoenas served on it and 44 county elections boards in August by Raleigh-based federal prosecutors overly broad and unreasonable. Those requests for ballots, poll books, registration applications and other documents totaled more than 20 million records, the state elections board estimated last year.
The state elections board said it is responding to grand jury subpoenas by providing records for 289 people who previously registered to vote in eastern North Carolina and another 500 people outside the region. The state board had called the subpoenas served on it and 44 county elections boards in August by Raleigh-based federal prosecutors overly broad and unreasonable. Those requests for ballots, poll books, registration applications and other documents totaled more than 20 million records, the state elections board estimated last year.

North Carolina: Opponent says Mark Harris knew about fraud in 9th District election and turned blind eye to it | WRAL

Republican Mark Harris needs to testify under oath as to what he knows about alleged absentee ballot fraud in the 9th Congressional District election, his opponent said Tuesday. Harris leads Democrat Dan McCready by about 900 votes in the race, but the State Board of Elections has refused to certify the results because of suspected voting irregularities in Bladen and Robeson counties. Harris has acknowledged hiring Bladen County political operative McCrae Dowless to oversee absentee ballot operations in the county. Several people have told reporters that Dowless paid them to pick up mail-in ballots, a felony under North Carolina law due to tampering concerns. Dowless has, through his attorney, denied any wrongdoing, but he hasn’t yet sat down with elections board investigators looking at the 9th District.