
DOWLESS WAS GIVEN SPECIAL ACCESS TO CONFIDENTIAL VOTER INFORMATION: Bladen County election board staff allowed Dowless to “take and copy unredacted absentee ballot request forms, which include social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, state ID numbers, and signatures,” according to Lutz, who resigned in mid-December. Lutz also claims in the affidavit that Dowless used public records laws to determine when voters would receive absentee ballots, “allowing Mr. Dowless to send his workers to those voters right after the ballots arrived.” Because the race of voters is included on the county reports about absentee ballot requests, “Mr. Dowless could have used it to target African American voters,” Lutz testified. On another occasion, Lutz witnessed Dowless “pressuring Board staff to provide this information to him,” according to his affidavit. Lutz then “confronted Mr. Dowless and told him that the Board office was closed,” Lutz reported. Dowless “responded angrily, and my fellow Board of Elections member, Mr. (Bobby) Ludlum, went outside to explain the situation, after which he left the Board of Elections.”
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article223514905.html
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