As some follow-up... Four people plead guilty in North Carolina ballot probe of 2016 and 2018 elections After the allegations surfaced in 2018, the elections board voted unanimously to order a new election in the state's 9th Congressional District. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/el...lina-ballot-probe-2016-2018-electio-rcna49534 RALEIGH, N.C. — Four people pleaded guilty on Monday to misdemeanors for their roles in absentee ballot fraud in rural North Carolina during the 2016 and 2018 elections. The convictions stemmed from an investigation that in part resulted in a do-over congressional election. Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway accepted the plea agreements in Wake County court, which resulted in no active prison or jail time. Cases against six other defendants remained pending, with hearings scheduled through the end of next month, Wake District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said. All 10 defendants, according to indictments handed up in 2019, had a common involvement with Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr., a longtime political operative in rural Bladen County. Dowless also was indicted on more than a dozen state charges, with his case scheduled last year to go to trial last month. He rejected a plea agreement and looked forward to his day in court, according to a friend. But he died in April after being diagnosed with lung cancer. Freeman said at the time that the prosecution of the other cases would continue. 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 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. In it, according to testimony, Dowless and his helpers gathered up hundreds of absentee ballots from voters by offering to put them in the mail. Some of workers said they were directed to collect blank or incomplete ballots, forge signatures on them and even fill in votes for local candidates. It is generally against the law in North Carolina for anyone other than the voter or a family member to handle someone’s completed ballot.