New election called in 9th District saga after Harris succumbs.
Raleigh, N. C. — The State Board of Elections called for a new election in the 9th Congressional District on Thursday after Republican Mark Harris acknowledged the mounting evidence of ballot fraud in his race and said a new contest was needed.
Harris also apologized for testimony he gave on damning emails that his legal team failed to provide the board ahead of this week’s hearing on the race. They were disclosed only after Harris’ son John was set to testify about them Wednesday, something Harris’ legal team tried to explain away as an error in a massive discovery process.
Mark Harris’ lead attorney stopped the board’s proceedings in the middle of his client’s testimony Thursday, and after closed-door meetings, Harris came back with a statement. It had been “brought to my attention,” he said, that he told his other son, Matthew, Tuesday night that those emails wouldn’t be part of the hearing.
State Board of Elections General Counsel Josh Lawson had asked Harris repeatedly before the break whether he’d had such a conversation, and Harris said each time he couldn’t remember one.
Matthew Harris, Mark Harris’ attorney said, was the one who revealed to his father that John Harris would testify in the case. That conversation took place Tuesday at about 11 p.m. It was John Harris’ testimony that broke the case open by disclosing that he repeatedly warned his father against hiring Bladen County operative McCrae Dowless to do absentee ballot work for Mark Harris’ congressional campaign in Bladen, Robeson and Cumberland counties.
Mark Harris, who was in the hospital in recent weeks with what he has previously described as a serious infection, also said Thursday that he had two strokes in recent weeks.
“Though I thought I was ready to undergo the rigors of this hearing and am getting strong, I am clearly not, and I struggled this morning with both recall and confusion,” he told the board in a prepared statement.
He went on to reiterate that neither he nor his campaign leadership knew about the “the improper activities that have been testified to in this hearing,” but he said it was obvious from that testimony a new election should be called.
The board has heard since Monday from several people that Dowless ran crews door to door picking up absentee ballots, which is a felony.
“It has become clear to me that the public’s confidence in the 9th District seat general election has been undermined to an extent that a new election is warranted,” Mark Harris said in his statement.
