With two guilty pleas, NC9 election fraud saga comes to an end

CHARLOTTE — After years of investigation and controversy, Channel 9 has confirmed the election fraud investigation into the 2018 9th Congressional District election has come to an end.

Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman confirmed Lisa Britt and Woody Hester both pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the investigation.

Britt and Hester were working for Bladen County political operative McCrae Dowless. Dowless worked in the 2018 congressional race for then-Republican candidate Mark Harris, who appeared to have received the most votes in the general election for the 9th District seat in south-central North Carolina.

But as Channel 9 discovered, allegations against Dowless surfaced, and testimony and other information revealed at a State Board of Elections hearing described him running an illegal “ballot harvesting” operation for the 2018 general election in Bladen County. According to testimony, Dowless and his helpers gathered up hundreds of absentee ballots from voters by offering to put them in the mail.

Britt and Hester were two of the workers facing charges for their roles in the scheme. Dowless died before facing a judge. All other workers pleaded guilty.

Lisa Britt testified against Dowless at the NCSBE hearing. She also cooperated with the investigation. As a result, DA Freeman did not require her to do community service as part of her sentence. She is on unsupervised probation for 12 months.

Hester pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess absentee ballot. He was sentenced to 100 hours of community service.

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Because of the fraud, NCSBE unanimously voted to hold a new Congressional election for what was then the 9th Congressional District. Republican Mark Harris opted to not run. Dan Bishop defeated Democratic candidate Dan McCready.

Harris ran for Congress again in 2024. He won the race for the 8th Congressional District, which now includes many of the counties that were in the 9th District in 2018.

(VIDEO: House candidate Mark Harris speaks to Ch. 9 for first time since ballot fraud scandal)