McCrae Dowless Obituary, Cause Of Death

Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. was an American political operative and convicted felon from the state of North Carolina.

McCrae Dowless’ actions were at the center of a fraud investigation following the 2018 North Carolina’s 9th congressional district election.

In February 2019, North Carolina’s election commission determined that the doubts surrounding the integrity of the election were sufficiently serious that the election results should be invalidated and a new election held.

McCrae Dowless was eventually convicted of defrauding the government and sentenced to six months in jail and fined.

McCrae Dowless began working in politics in 2006, focusing on get out the vote efforts.

In 2006, McCrae Dowless worked for Rex Gore’s campaign for district attorney of Bladen County.

Over the next couple of years, McCrae Dowless was paid thousands of dollars for getting out the vote efforts and, at times, for managing the campaigns of eastern North Carolina candidates Wesley Meredith, Al Leonard, Ken Waddell, and William Brisson.

In the 2016 elections for U.S. House of Representatives, McCrae Dowless worked for Todd Johnson in the Republican Party primary election.

Todd Johnson finished third behind incumbent Robert Pittenger and Mark Harris.

After the election, McCrae Dowless filed a complaint with the North Carolina Board of Elections suggesting that Johnson’s opponents had committed fraud with absentee ballots, with two voters also filing complaints of voter fraud against Dowless.

After noticing that Todd Johnson had won the absentee vote in Bladen County in 2016, Mark Harris had a consulting company, Red Dome Group (Lead Partner Andy Yates) hire Dowless to work on his 2018 campaign.

Mark Harris also introduced Dowless to a Republican candidate running for Charlotte City Council in 2017.

In the 2018 primary election, Mark Harris defeated Robert Pittenger.

However, doubts later surfaced regarding McCrae Dowless’ role in absentee balloting in the primary; Harris received 437 of the 456 absentee votes cast in Bladen County.

In the general election against Democratic Party nominee Dan McCready, Mark Harris was the unofficial winner by 905 votes.

However, the North Carolina State Board of Elections refused to certify the results of the election.

McCrae Dowless was accused of paying workers to illegally collect absentee ballots from voters and was considered a “person of interest” in the investigation over mishandled absentee ballots.

On February 4 (2018), the newly seated state elections board set an evidentiary hearing to begin on February 18 (2018).

On February 21 (2018), the Board of Elections unanimously voted to order a new election in the congressional race. The Board also ordered new elections in two other contests for local offices.

On February 26, 2019, citing ill health, Mark Harris declared that he would not compete in the new election.

On February 27, 2019, McCrae Dowless was arrested after being indicted by a Wake County grand jury.

McCrae Dowless was charged with multiple counts related to illegal ballot handling and obstructing justice in the 2016 and 2018 elections.

On April 7, 2020, McCrae Dowless was indicted on federal charges of Social Security fraud.

In the indictment, unsealed on April 21, prosecutors alleged that Dowless claimed disability and retirement benefits in 2017 and 2018, but failed to tell the Social Security Administration about over $132,000 in payments he received for working on the Harris campaign and one other campaign in the 2018 cycle.

In June 2021, McCrae Dowless pled guilty to two charges, and was convicted of government theft and defrauding the government.

McCrae Dowless was sentenced to six months in prison and fined more than $8500.

McCrae Dowless died on April 24, 2022 following a diagnosis with lung cancer.