Day 2 Of The 9th District Evidentiary Hearing Offers More Revealing Testimony

RALEIGH, NC — Mark Harris is scheduled to testify in the 9th district evidentiary hearing on Wednesday. His comments will come after a revealing day of testimony from Bladen County poll workers and Andy Yates, the head of Red Dome.

“I was shocked and disturbed to learn that that appears not the case,” said Yates.

His consulting firm paid McCrae Dowless for Mark Harris. Yates says he was lied to by Dowless.

Yates says Dowless was hired by the Harris campaign before he joined and that he understood Dowless’ operations to be legal.

“I care deeply about the integrity of our democracy and I’m not going to put up with that junk and frankly that crap,” said Yates.

State investigators say Dowless paid people to collect completed absentee ballots and bring them to his office.

Yates testified on Tuesday that he would have resigned from the Harris campaign if he knew of illegal actions.

It’s been reported that Mark Harris had suspicions about absentee ballots in Bladen County in 2016 after losing to Robert Pittinger in the primary.

Also in 2016, Dowless took the 5th when asked to testify about his role in the governor’s race, which also had allegations of ballot harvesting.

The head of the North Carolina Republican Party, Dallas Woodhouse, was involved in that election challenge which was dismissed.

“It was my belief that everything was legal,” said Woodhouse.

Lawyers for Dan McCready say Tuesday’s testimony draws Harris closer to Dowless.

“That election fraud has directly linked up to the candidate. Mark Harris hired Dowless. He communicated with Dowless over what the scope of the program was and he was in regular contact with Dowless,” said Mark Elias.

While attorneys for Harris say the candidate was led on by a liar.

“What we’ve learned today is that both Andy Yates and Dr. Harris were told by McCrae Dowless that everything he was doing was legal,” said Alex Dale.

Dowless declined to testify on Monday. He is being criminally investigated by the Wake County District Attorney.

When asked if the Harris campaign should be responsible for Dowless’ activities, Harris’ attorney Alex Dale said, “I would say absolutely not.”

Also testifying on Tuesday were several Bladen County poll workers.

They testified they were trained and told to print out early voting election results before Election Day, which is a clear violation of state rules.