CHARLOTTE, N.C. — With the North Carolina State Board of Elections in the midst of its public evidentiary hearing into allegations of ballot tampering in the state's 9th District last November, former governor Pat McCrory wants the investigation to expand into the 2016 election, as well.
"I am requesting, as the former Governor of North Carolina, that the North Carolina elections board expand its voter fraud investigation back into the 2016 general election," McCrory said. "This request was totally rejected and ignored back in 2016 when my campaign asked that we investigate the same type of allegations that are being directed toward the Harris campaign."
During Monday's hearing, the board heard testimony from several witnesses, including Lisa Britt, who said McCrae Dowless paid her and other operatives to run what investigators called an unlawful absentee voter scheme in Bladen and Robeson counties. Britt said after the election results were fist questioned, Dowless told his workers they would not get in trouble.
"I'm concerned that this absentee voter quagmire was not only happening in these two counties or three counties, but could've easily been happening in other counties," McCrory said.
She also claimed that she would fill in votes if they were left blank on absentee ballots. Dowless refused to testify without immunity Monday. The board refused to give Dowless immunity and dismissed him from the hearing.
"Our state needs to clean up this mess on both sides of the aisle and let the chips fall where they need to fall," McCrory said. "But we need to get the facts out. It's not going to change the results of my election, we've got a new governor, but we deserve to know what happened in 2016 and possibly before."
McCrory claimed that former elections board chairman Joshua Malcolm worked to prevent any investigation into "squash" public hearings after the 2016 election that saw Roy Cooper defeat him to become governor.
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"And the lawyer asking for any investigations to be squashed in 2016 is now the same lawyer that is representing the Democratic party and the McCready campaign, asking that we have investigations. What hypocrisy," he said.