But he was looking simply at data that he was doing of a special election," <person>Harris</person> said, "He had never been to Bladen County, he had never met <person>McCrae Dowless</person>, he had never met any of these elected leaders. ... So no, I didn't go back any further. ... I did have a comfort level at that point."
<person>Harris</person> met <person>Dowless</person> at an April 2017 meeting arranged by a mutual friend, Judge <person>Marion Warren</person>.
"He seemed to have the relationships that I was gathering from the conversation that happened in that meeting that day," <person>Harris</person> said. "Absentee ballot request forms and getting people to fill that out and turn that in and even get an absentee ballot, does take a certain amount of trust for individuals to do it, and those relationships I felt like is what caused him to be successful."
(MORE: North Carolina Board of Elections chairman resigns amid election fraud investigation)