The Vote Collectors, Second Edition: The True Story of the Scamsters, Politicians, and Preachers behind the Nation's Greatest Electoral Fraud (A Ferris and Ferris Book)

Graff, Michael; Ochsner, Nick

ISBN 10: 1469679647 / ISBN 13: 9781469679648

Published by The University of North Carolina Press, 2024

About this Item

PRINT ON DEMAND.

Seller Inventory # 18398801151

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Vote Collectors, Second Edition: The True Story of the Scamsters, Politicians, and Preachers behind the Nation's Greatest Electoral Fraud (A Ferris and Ferris Book)
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1469679647
• ISBN 13: 9781469679648
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 2nd Edition
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

In November 2018, Baptist preacher Mark Harris beat the odds, narrowly fending off a blue wave in the sprawling Ninth District of North Carolina. But word soon got around that something fishy was going on in rural Bladen County. At the center of the mess was a local political operative named McCrae Dowless. Dowless had learned the ins and outs of the absentee ballot system from Democrats before switching over to the Republican Party. Bladen County’s vote-collecting cottage industry made national headlines, led to multiple election fraud indictments, toppled North Carolina GOP leadership, and left hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians without congressional representation for nearly a year.

In The Vote Collectors, Michael Graff and Nick Ochsner tell the story of the political shenanigans in Bladen County, exposing the shocking vulnerability of local elections and explaining why our present systems are powerless to monitor and prevent fraud. In their hands, this tale of rural corruption becomes a fascinating narrative of the long clash of racism and electioneering—and a larger story about the challenges to democracy in the rural South.

In their preface to this second edition, Graff and Ochsner bring the story up to date, as accusations of voter fraud continue to pervade our national discourse. The Vote Collectors shows the reality of election stealing in one southern county, where democracy was undermined the old-fashioned way: one absentee ballot at a time.

About the Authors

Michael Graff is the Southern bureau chief for Axios Charlotte.

Nick Ochsner is executive producer and chief investigative reporter at WBTV in Charlotte, NC.