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The Vote Collectors: The True Story of the Scamsters, Politicians, and Preachers behind the Nation's Greatest Electoral Fraud
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.
At a time rife with accusations of election fraud, The Vote Collectors shows the reality of election stealing in one southern county, where democracy was undermined the old-fashioned one absentee ballot at a time.
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.
At a time rife with accusations of election fraud, The Vote Collectors shows the reality of election stealing in one southern county, where democracy was undermined the old-fashioned one absentee ballot at a time.
296 pages, Hardcover
Published November 16, 2021
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January 25, 2022
America's chowderheads delude themselves into believing in the existence of preposterously well-oiled and flawlessly-executed conspiracies to commit mass fraud during US elections. Meanwhile, actual voting conspiracies, like this one, are attempted on a smaller scale by rings of pathetic grifters and their dopey henchmen. These genuine real-life conspiracies fall apart because, well, people who do things like this are invariably not the sharpest knives in the drawer, all the way up the chain of command. I don't think it's a spoiler to tell you that the fate of this conspiracy is the same as many others: eventually, law enforcement zeroed in on the lowest and most vulnerable members of the conspiracy, got them to flip, and made their way up the organizational ladders as far as the circumstances, including but not limited to their budget and other resources, allow. The result here is the same as frequently happens elsewhere: public interest moves on once the little fish are prosecuted and jailed, and higher-up responsible parties go free.
It's hard to give an appropriate opinion about this book. It is, as another reviewer said, “all over the place.” It gives a coherent account of criminal and political activities which are often ambiguous and/or complicated to explain. I'm glad I read this book. But the book also has some chip-on-the-shoulder attitude. People from North Carolina are good people whom the world does not understand. No one outside of North Carolina, it seems, can understand it. Unfair news coverage by outsiders is repeatedly alluded to. Stephen Colbert is given as an example. Colbert was a political satirist – being unfair is part of his job.
It wasn't clear to me what the authors wanted from us non-North Carolinians. For example, at Kindle location 3125, after much of the scandal had played out:
I think the authors wanted us to like McCrae Dowless, who is the center of the story and the object of the most aggressive prosecution. They didn't succeed. Maybe the authors thought he was a likable rogue? I guess that was the point of calling him, at one point, “easy to like” and, at numerous other points, a “flim-flam man”. Here's a description of him from Kindle location 1094:
However, the authors succeed in proving that Dowless is the sort of man whose idea of a clever scheme is to take out a life insurance policy on a person who is already dead and then attempt to claim it shortly afterward. He is the sort of man who goes to jail for it, and then, when released, devotes time and energy attempting to ruin the career of the man who prosecuted him. The authors tell you all of this. It's really hard to find Dowless as charming as the authors claim he is.
McCrae Dowless did his election fraud – this time – in the service of Republican congressional candidate Mark Harris. (Dowless worked for Democrats previously.) Harris was declared the winner unofficially, but the state board of elections refused to certify his victory, and eventually a new election was called, in which Harris did not run. Later, the district attorney on the case declined to charge Harris, although the evidence against him was pretty damning. The authors seem outraged at this, seeming to say: See? The big fish gets away.
Harris is not a big fish. He is a Baptist pastor and now 55 years old. He was very sick during the events which undid his supposed victory. It cost him a lot of money and ripped his family apart. Perhaps it's hard to feel sorry for him, but it was pretty clear that, after the scandal, he was retiring from politics and was not going to become a serial voter fraudster because he was allowed to walk free. Any prosecution might have backfired if the defense was able to portray the prosecution of Harris as a witch hunt and/or a waste of taxpayer money. The decision not to prosecute any further up the political food chain is NOT, I feel, a sign of nation-ending systematic corruption, but a practical decision by people and governments that have limited time and energy.
(An aside: The son of Mark Harris, John, who strangely came out of the scandal with a reputation for integrity not only preserved but actually strengthened, has announced, just yesterday as I write this, that he will run for the North Carolina state legislature. See an article here.)
Summary: A good book when it sticks to saying what happened.
I received a free electronic advance review copy of this book from the University of North Carolina Press via Netgalley. Thanks for the free stuff.
It's hard to give an appropriate opinion about this book. It is, as another reviewer said, “all over the place.” It gives a coherent account of criminal and political activities which are often ambiguous and/or complicated to explain. I'm glad I read this book. But the book also has some chip-on-the-shoulder attitude. People from North Carolina are good people whom the world does not understand. No one outside of North Carolina, it seems, can understand it. Unfair news coverage by outsiders is repeatedly alluded to. Stephen Colbert is given as an example. Colbert was a political satirist – being unfair is part of his job.
It wasn't clear to me what the authors wanted from us non-North Carolinians. For example, at Kindle location 3125, after much of the scandal had played out:
Most of the news crews were gone, having swiped a white glove across the Bladen County shelf and deemed it dusty. But nobody seemed to want to stay and clean it up.Is this genuinely what you want? A bunch of outsiders telling the people of North Carolina how to run their state? Really? I distinctly remember this being tried before, without much success.
I think the authors wanted us to like McCrae Dowless, who is the center of the story and the object of the most aggressive prosecution. They didn't succeed. Maybe the authors thought he was a likable rogue? I guess that was the point of calling him, at one point, “easy to like” and, at numerous other points, a “flim-flam man”. Here's a description of him from Kindle location 1094:
A flim-flam man pays attention. Far better than you might expect. McCrae doesn't miss much. He even has a habit of finishing sentences for you, mumbling the last words as if he knew them before you did. Your own words. He'll point to you as he says them, not only to make it clear he knew what you were about to say, but to validate if for you in the process. It's a remarkable trick, and one that comes natural to him.I think that this is presented as if it is a sign of cunning intelligence on McCrae's part, but the habit of finishing other people's sentences while pointing at them is actually a sign of being, as my mother might have called it, “too smart by half,” that is, smart enough to anticipate what the other person was about to say, but not smart enough to know that pointing at people and finishing their sentences is obnoxious, and often counter-productive. A genuinely smart and crafty person might know how his interlocutor's sentence is about to end, but will allow the other person to finish, if only to show common courtesy, which might even pay off in the form of good will later on. But more generally, people, even if they aren't Mensa-certified, know that allowing someone to talk without interruption is good manners.
However, the authors succeed in proving that Dowless is the sort of man whose idea of a clever scheme is to take out a life insurance policy on a person who is already dead and then attempt to claim it shortly afterward. He is the sort of man who goes to jail for it, and then, when released, devotes time and energy attempting to ruin the career of the man who prosecuted him. The authors tell you all of this. It's really hard to find Dowless as charming as the authors claim he is.
McCrae Dowless did his election fraud – this time – in the service of Republican congressional candidate Mark Harris. (Dowless worked for Democrats previously.) Harris was declared the winner unofficially, but the state board of elections refused to certify his victory, and eventually a new election was called, in which Harris did not run. Later, the district attorney on the case declined to charge Harris, although the evidence against him was pretty damning. The authors seem outraged at this, seeming to say: See? The big fish gets away.
Harris is not a big fish. He is a Baptist pastor and now 55 years old. He was very sick during the events which undid his supposed victory. It cost him a lot of money and ripped his family apart. Perhaps it's hard to feel sorry for him, but it was pretty clear that, after the scandal, he was retiring from politics and was not going to become a serial voter fraudster because he was allowed to walk free. Any prosecution might have backfired if the defense was able to portray the prosecution of Harris as a witch hunt and/or a waste of taxpayer money. The decision not to prosecute any further up the political food chain is NOT, I feel, a sign of nation-ending systematic corruption, but a practical decision by people and governments that have limited time and energy.
(An aside: The son of Mark Harris, John, who strangely came out of the scandal with a reputation for integrity not only preserved but actually strengthened, has announced, just yesterday as I write this, that he will run for the North Carolina state legislature. See an article here.)
Summary: A good book when it sticks to saying what happened.
I received a free electronic advance review copy of this book from the University of North Carolina Press via Netgalley. Thanks for the free stuff.
October 26, 2022
I really wanted to like this book more. Graff and Ochsner clearly have done a lot of really good, deep reporting on the 2018 illegal Republican vote harvesting operation in Bladen County, NC. However, I don't think their reporting translated nearly as well to a full length book.
The structure was really ill-advised. The book is split into thirds: the lead up to election day 2018, a breezy historical survey of Bladen County from the 19th century to present, and then the fall out. Shoving the historical survey right into the middle of the book is an interesting and not at all well executed idea. It breaks up the narrative to the point where you forget what the book is about and it's just very surface level summaries of events. It feels like the authors knew that they didn't have enough material from the 2018 reporting to make an entire book so they inserted this history section.
If you are looking for a good overview of the case, the same author's had a great Political piece that covers the same material. I would only recommend this book if you want to go really deep - and I mean really, they cover events at times day by day and even minute by minute. Otherwise, the summary article is sufficient enough to understand this particular shady underbelly of politics and voter fraud (populated by Republicans, a reminder that nearly all GOP concerns are projections of their own flaws).
The structure was really ill-advised. The book is split into thirds: the lead up to election day 2018, a breezy historical survey of Bladen County from the 19th century to present, and then the fall out. Shoving the historical survey right into the middle of the book is an interesting and not at all well executed idea. It breaks up the narrative to the point where you forget what the book is about and it's just very surface level summaries of events. It feels like the authors knew that they didn't have enough material from the 2018 reporting to make an entire book so they inserted this history section.
If you are looking for a good overview of the case, the same author's had a great Political piece that covers the same material. I would only recommend this book if you want to go really deep - and I mean really, they cover events at times day by day and even minute by minute. Otherwise, the summary article is sufficient enough to understand this particular shady underbelly of politics and voter fraud (populated by Republicans, a reminder that nearly all GOP concerns are projections of their own flaws).
February 12, 2022
This book is probably my favorite so far this year... On top of learning a lot (and I mean A LOT) Michael Graff's writing is just so incredible. When he described an angry person as someone who was so mad that every bite of food tasted like "a mouthful of nickels" well that's just... Perfect. And when he mentions that somebody else likes to repeat themself. Repeat themself. That is just wordsmithing at its best.
It doesn't hurt that I know a lot of the places mentioned in the book, and the characterizations feel pretty authentic. Cannot recommend this book enough.
It doesn't hurt that I know a lot of the places mentioned in the book, and the characterizations feel pretty authentic. Cannot recommend this book enough.
December 29, 2021
I throughly enjoyed reading this book. To fully understand the voter fraud from the Ninth district in North Carolina, the back history is critical. The authors did an excellent job explaining these historical events. Past race relations played a significant role in the power dynamics that led to the voter fraud & suppression examined in this book. The case of voter fraud was fascinating & almost seems too fake to be real. If you enjoy reading about all the ins & outs of politics, you will enjoy reading this book.
December 29, 2021
Thank you to NetGalley and University of North Carolina Press for an ARC of this book!
I found this book to be very well-written and important given our current political climate. It touches upon how "voter fraud" is not as persistent as we've been told recently while voter suppression has been and still is.
At first, I found the book to be a little all over the place, with a lack of structure that flowed well. There's times when the authors go into a lot of detail that doesn't seem very relevant to the overarching point of the book. However, I think if the synopsis was updated to include the racial, historical, economical, and environmental issues that play into the story it would solve this initial confusion. As a reader who just knew about the book from what the synopsis said, it was difficult for the first part of the book.
The second part of the book was definitely the most informative and showcased how history plays a huge role in what is happening politically within the United States. I think overall the book is informative but not reactive.
I found this book to be very well-written and important given our current political climate. It touches upon how "voter fraud" is not as persistent as we've been told recently while voter suppression has been and still is.
At first, I found the book to be a little all over the place, with a lack of structure that flowed well. There's times when the authors go into a lot of detail that doesn't seem very relevant to the overarching point of the book. However, I think if the synopsis was updated to include the racial, historical, economical, and environmental issues that play into the story it would solve this initial confusion. As a reader who just knew about the book from what the synopsis said, it was difficult for the first part of the book.
The second part of the book was definitely the most informative and showcased how history plays a huge role in what is happening politically within the United States. I think overall the book is informative but not reactive.
January 23, 2024
The Publisher Says: 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.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: While I did not love the book’s structure, I *did* resonate to its message and purpose: documenting and publicizing the voter fraud committed in the 2018 election by the North Carolina GOP in search of a national majority in the US Congress to further their regressive agenda. I have reaffirmed my belief that guilty people accuse others of their own crimes as a result of reading this book.
You should read it, too, as we approach the 2024 elections. If you imagine that catching these perpetrators of voter fraud is enough to scare the others out there into compliance with the law, think again...these are True Believers in A Cause, men—mostly—on a mission. Vigilance of the citizenry is the only resource we have left to combat this criminal undertaking. The authors are at pains to detail the toothlessness of oversight allowed by the state’s law on North Carolina’s local elections. It is not terribly different in the rest of the country.
The center of the 2018 plot was a man the authors seem to have a lot more sympathy and affection for than is warranted in my observation of their own descriptions of him: McCrae Dowless. A convicted insurance fraudster who transitioned to political fraud with apparent ease, Dowless was a Democratic operative who switched sides and ramped up the lawbreaking after he learned the ropes. His early death has failed to elicit from me more than a "what a relief at least one is gone" response.
Not a book to be dipped in and out of, because the level of detail can grow hazy in one's mind after too much time away. Also not a light little romp through one event in a bygone election. This stuff is going on now, and it will not stop until the silent, bored, apathetic parts of the electorate get off their "ignorance is bliss, if we don't think about it, it will go away" poses.
Voter suppression is real, and a real problem. It is time to pay attention to it. Start here. The second edition is $23.00 for a trade paperback, preorders for March 2024 at the UNC website|first edition $8.53 on Kindle, available now
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.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: While I did not love the book’s structure, I *did* resonate to its message and purpose: documenting and publicizing the voter fraud committed in the 2018 election by the North Carolina GOP in search of a national majority in the US Congress to further their regressive agenda. I have reaffirmed my belief that guilty people accuse others of their own crimes as a result of reading this book.
You should read it, too, as we approach the 2024 elections. If you imagine that catching these perpetrators of voter fraud is enough to scare the others out there into compliance with the law, think again...these are True Believers in A Cause, men—mostly—on a mission. Vigilance of the citizenry is the only resource we have left to combat this criminal undertaking. The authors are at pains to detail the toothlessness of oversight allowed by the state’s law on North Carolina’s local elections. It is not terribly different in the rest of the country.
The center of the 2018 plot was a man the authors seem to have a lot more sympathy and affection for than is warranted in my observation of their own descriptions of him: McCrae Dowless. A convicted insurance fraudster who transitioned to political fraud with apparent ease, Dowless was a Democratic operative who switched sides and ramped up the lawbreaking after he learned the ropes. His early death has failed to elicit from me more than a "what a relief at least one is gone" response.
Not a book to be dipped in and out of, because the level of detail can grow hazy in one's mind after too much time away. Also not a light little romp through one event in a bygone election. This stuff is going on now, and it will not stop until the silent, bored, apathetic parts of the electorate get off their "ignorance is bliss, if we don't think about it, it will go away" poses.
Voter suppression is real, and a real problem. It is time to pay attention to it. Start here. The second edition is $23.00 for a trade paperback, preorders for March 2024 at the UNC website|first edition $8.53 on Kindle, available now
February 4, 2023
The Vote Collectors: The True Story of the Scamsters, Politicians, and Preachers behind the Nation’s Greatest Electoral Fraud is the result of meticulous research by Michael Graff, editor of Axios Charlotte, and Nick Ochsner, chief investigator reporter at WBTV in Charlotte, NC.
The account is divided into three parts. The first is the story of the 2018 election. On November 6, 2018, Baptist preacher Mark Harris pulled off a narrow surprise victory over Democrat Dan McCready in the gerrymandered Ninth District of North Carolina. It wasn’t long before stories began to circulate about some irregularities in rural Bladen County. At the center of the controversy was a local political activist named McCrae Dowless.
Dowless initially learned his electioneering skills and his knowledge of the absentee ballot system from the Bladen County Democrats. He later switched to the Republican Party. Bladen County’s vote-collecting schemes made national headlines, led to multiple election fraud indictments, and left District Nine without representation in the 116th Congress for nearly a year.
As background, Part Two of the account goes deep into the history of regional racism in southeastern North Carolina. There is a step-by-step description of the development of the Jim Crow system in the region. The Wilmington insurrection of 1898 plays a key role in this cultural and legal history. The event has been characterized as a violent overthrow of a duly elected government by a group of white supremacists. It is the only such incident in the history of the United States.
Part three of the account deals with the aftermath of the 2018 election. In February of 2019 the North Carolina State Board of Elections held an evidentiary hearing. On February 21, the board unanimously voted to call a new election because of fraud by Republican operatives. Several Republican campaign activists were indicted for their role in a ballot harvesting and tampering operation. The ballot tampering including filling in blank votes to favor Republican candidates. Dowless was indicted on felony charges consisting of three counts of obstruction of justice, two counts of conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice, and two counts of possession of absentee ballots. Four others were also charged in relation to the absentee ballot collection scheme. Harris did not run again, and Dan Bishop narrowly won the general election, amassing 50.7% of the vote to McCready's 48.7%.
Graff and Ochsner wrote, "Dowless was a lot of things to a lot of people. To Democrats, he was despicable, a Republican who tried to undermine democracy. To Republicans, he was a low-level fall guy who proved how easy it was to undermine democracy. In his two-decade political career, Dowless had worked for candidates on both sides of the aisle, and in the end he was put out of both." In April of 2022, Dowless died of lung cancer.
The account is divided into three parts. The first is the story of the 2018 election. On November 6, 2018, Baptist preacher Mark Harris pulled off a narrow surprise victory over Democrat Dan McCready in the gerrymandered Ninth District of North Carolina. It wasn’t long before stories began to circulate about some irregularities in rural Bladen County. At the center of the controversy was a local political activist named McCrae Dowless.
Dowless initially learned his electioneering skills and his knowledge of the absentee ballot system from the Bladen County Democrats. He later switched to the Republican Party. Bladen County’s vote-collecting schemes made national headlines, led to multiple election fraud indictments, and left District Nine without representation in the 116th Congress for nearly a year.
As background, Part Two of the account goes deep into the history of regional racism in southeastern North Carolina. There is a step-by-step description of the development of the Jim Crow system in the region. The Wilmington insurrection of 1898 plays a key role in this cultural and legal history. The event has been characterized as a violent overthrow of a duly elected government by a group of white supremacists. It is the only such incident in the history of the United States.
Part three of the account deals with the aftermath of the 2018 election. In February of 2019 the North Carolina State Board of Elections held an evidentiary hearing. On February 21, the board unanimously voted to call a new election because of fraud by Republican operatives. Several Republican campaign activists were indicted for their role in a ballot harvesting and tampering operation. The ballot tampering including filling in blank votes to favor Republican candidates. Dowless was indicted on felony charges consisting of three counts of obstruction of justice, two counts of conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice, and two counts of possession of absentee ballots. Four others were also charged in relation to the absentee ballot collection scheme. Harris did not run again, and Dan Bishop narrowly won the general election, amassing 50.7% of the vote to McCready's 48.7%.
Graff and Ochsner wrote, "Dowless was a lot of things to a lot of people. To Democrats, he was despicable, a Republican who tried to undermine democracy. To Republicans, he was a low-level fall guy who proved how easy it was to undermine democracy. In his two-decade political career, Dowless had worked for candidates on both sides of the aisle, and in the end he was put out of both." In April of 2022, Dowless died of lung cancer.
May 28, 2023
This is an excellent narrative telling of one of the most blatant election fraud scandals in recent memory. The authors are careful to put the remarkable events of the 2018 election in NC-9 in context, showing how less-than-savory electoral practices date back decades in this corner of North Carolina--over a century if you see the violent suppression of the Klan and the legal supression of Jim Crow as part of that history. The fraud of McCrae Dowless and his operation, so blatant and shocking and sudden when reported by national news outlets, is shown to really be just a further progression of the small-town corruption that rankles the floodplains of Eastern NC like a rash of sores.
The authors do make the mistake of being a bit too charitable to some rather hypocritical characters. It was irresponsible, for example, to report a wealthy white businessman's desire for a 'White Lives Matter' campaign as a legitimate response to BLM's push for the rights of Black people. It was absurd to credulously give voice to a hog farmer who protested he wasn't given enough credit for cleaning up the hog lagoons in response to regulation. (He made those hog lagoons--he doesn't get credit for only cleaning them up because the government forced him to). And it was a dereliction of duty to the truth to claim that Trump's lies about voter fraud were based in legitimate concerns of rural voters about corruption such as that retold in this book. It is telling that right-wing whingery about election integrity are all about illegal immigrants voting, about dead people voting thanks to big-city Democrat machines. But that's not what happened here, so the right-wing didn't care. Trump's lies about elections gain traction because they feed into a racist fear of non-white people voting--something that ought to have been obvious to the authors, given they spend almost 100 pages carefully reviewing the voter suppression practices of white supremacists all the way back to Reconstruction.
The authors have done us a service by investigating McCrae Dowless's fraud and showing it is not a sui generis event, but rather a product of a corrupt, impoverished environment, in which powerful racists can bend politics to their will, in which trust in authority and in one's neighbors is nonexistent, in which elections are seen as basically pointless, because they won't change anything, so why not make them a lie if you can make a few bucks?
The authors do make the mistake of being a bit too charitable to some rather hypocritical characters. It was irresponsible, for example, to report a wealthy white businessman's desire for a 'White Lives Matter' campaign as a legitimate response to BLM's push for the rights of Black people. It was absurd to credulously give voice to a hog farmer who protested he wasn't given enough credit for cleaning up the hog lagoons in response to regulation. (He made those hog lagoons--he doesn't get credit for only cleaning them up because the government forced him to). And it was a dereliction of duty to the truth to claim that Trump's lies about voter fraud were based in legitimate concerns of rural voters about corruption such as that retold in this book. It is telling that right-wing whingery about election integrity are all about illegal immigrants voting, about dead people voting thanks to big-city Democrat machines. But that's not what happened here, so the right-wing didn't care. Trump's lies about elections gain traction because they feed into a racist fear of non-white people voting--something that ought to have been obvious to the authors, given they spend almost 100 pages carefully reviewing the voter suppression practices of white supremacists all the way back to Reconstruction.
The authors have done us a service by investigating McCrae Dowless's fraud and showing it is not a sui generis event, but rather a product of a corrupt, impoverished environment, in which powerful racists can bend politics to their will, in which trust in authority and in one's neighbors is nonexistent, in which elections are seen as basically pointless, because they won't change anything, so why not make them a lie if you can make a few bucks?
March 21, 2024
The story is great & the book is good, but as a reader of non-fiction who began his career in media 45 years ago as a newspaper reporter, I have never seen such editorializing, so few notes & citations & such poor journalism.
My American ancestors in Bladen County date back to the early 1700s. My father grew up there & I inherited land there that I later sold. I never lived there & I know only a few people who live there now, although I am distantly related to many, including I suspect some subjects in this story. I have researched my Bladen County genealogy for 20 years & several years ago I stumbled upon this -- https://www.thisamericanlife.org/abou.... If you read this book & enjoyed it, you will enjoy this podcast, too. I am also on my own personal re-education on racism (as you can tell by my reading list), so this story fascinates me.
Contrary to others, I think the book's three-part organization makes perfect sense. Kudos to the authors for the second section that recognizes the history so many racial & political issues. The access the authors gained to key players in this story is phenomenal, too. The descriptions of Bladen County & eastern NC are also extremely consistent w/ my own memories; I was born in Greenville, spent a few boyhood summers in Martin County, began college in Wilmington & traveled extensively through eastern NC.
Otherwise, I unfortunately find journalistic integrity sorely lacking in this book. For example, on the first page of text, the authors use the phrase "small-town shit" to describe the this story the book is about to tell. I got no problem w/ such words, but IMO how its used here is at best lazy if not ignorant. It's sad how much of the books comes off as arrogant or condescending. Additional factual errors & common stereotypes, misused words & unnecessary insinuations further bother me. For example, it's odd why the authors identified a few individuals by only their first names; the authors omitted all names of Mark Harris's lawyers while naming most others at the election board hearings; an easy Google search quickly discredits the authors' statement that in 1864 Adrian Galloway "and four others were the first Black men to walk through the front door of the White House."
The authors also seem oblivious to their own contradictions, for example: In Chapter Two, they write: "McCrae would often point out to Nick that he'd never lie to him. It's just the kind of thing a con man would tell his mark." In Chapter 29, they write: "Few things are believable in this story..." In Chapter 25, they seem to libel the entire population, writing: "It's worth remembering in Bladen County, you can't trust anybody." Then, in A Note on Sources, they write: "In other words, everything that happened in this book is true." It's curious how a good editor would have missed these story-telling weaknesses.
I simply wish this book had been told w/ more competence. Instead of being so loose w/ their opinions, why didn't the authors simply let the facts tell the story?
My American ancestors in Bladen County date back to the early 1700s. My father grew up there & I inherited land there that I later sold. I never lived there & I know only a few people who live there now, although I am distantly related to many, including I suspect some subjects in this story. I have researched my Bladen County genealogy for 20 years & several years ago I stumbled upon this -- https://www.thisamericanlife.org/abou.... If you read this book & enjoyed it, you will enjoy this podcast, too. I am also on my own personal re-education on racism (as you can tell by my reading list), so this story fascinates me.
Contrary to others, I think the book's three-part organization makes perfect sense. Kudos to the authors for the second section that recognizes the history so many racial & political issues. The access the authors gained to key players in this story is phenomenal, too. The descriptions of Bladen County & eastern NC are also extremely consistent w/ my own memories; I was born in Greenville, spent a few boyhood summers in Martin County, began college in Wilmington & traveled extensively through eastern NC.
Otherwise, I unfortunately find journalistic integrity sorely lacking in this book. For example, on the first page of text, the authors use the phrase "small-town shit" to describe the this story the book is about to tell. I got no problem w/ such words, but IMO how its used here is at best lazy if not ignorant. It's sad how much of the books comes off as arrogant or condescending. Additional factual errors & common stereotypes, misused words & unnecessary insinuations further bother me. For example, it's odd why the authors identified a few individuals by only their first names; the authors omitted all names of Mark Harris's lawyers while naming most others at the election board hearings; an easy Google search quickly discredits the authors' statement that in 1864 Adrian Galloway "and four others were the first Black men to walk through the front door of the White House."
The authors also seem oblivious to their own contradictions, for example: In Chapter Two, they write: "McCrae would often point out to Nick that he'd never lie to him. It's just the kind of thing a con man would tell his mark." In Chapter 29, they write: "Few things are believable in this story..." In Chapter 25, they seem to libel the entire population, writing: "It's worth remembering in Bladen County, you can't trust anybody." Then, in A Note on Sources, they write: "In other words, everything that happened in this book is true." It's curious how a good editor would have missed these story-telling weaknesses.
I simply wish this book had been told w/ more competence. Instead of being so loose w/ their opinions, why didn't the authors simply let the facts tell the story?
March 4, 2022
I enjoyed the Vote Collectors. It highlights the disenfranchised people of eastern North Carolina and how easily our election system can be compromised by money and power. I had followed the news reports of the Ninth Congressional district (which is my district) and thought I knew what happened, but I learned many new details. Michael Graff and Nick Oschner craft a page turner, with crystal clear character development and well paced historical background. They expose long time systemic racism, going back to Wilmington during reconstruction and make clear why NC is still so divided rural vs. urban and Black vs. white. Great read!
August 4, 2025
I nearly couldn't put this down once I opened it.
I grew up in Wilmington, had family in Columbus County, and spent a couple weeks each summer in Bladen County. I knew this area well, but clearly didn't know how it became what it is today.
When I was in high school, the area was just beginning to grapple with its troubled history and the effects of November 1898. In the second section, Graff and Ochsner provide a clear, accessible view into that history, and highlight how that history ties to present day Bladen County and the trouble with the 2018 election.
I felt like I was back home while I was reading this. Great job!
I grew up in Wilmington, had family in Columbus County, and spent a couple weeks each summer in Bladen County. I knew this area well, but clearly didn't know how it became what it is today.
When I was in high school, the area was just beginning to grapple with its troubled history and the effects of November 1898. In the second section, Graff and Ochsner provide a clear, accessible view into that history, and highlight how that history ties to present day Bladen County and the trouble with the 2018 election.
I felt like I was back home while I was reading this. Great job!
January 29, 2024
The reporters were At The Scene of the events of Bladen County and no one else could have written this book with as much inside knowledge as they have except perhaps the criminal himself. The placement into history before and after the events of the 2016 and 2018 elections is very well done. As a North Carolinian extremely familiar with all these stories, the contextualization nonetheless added clarity and meaning. Aside from being an important book it is simply a good read, well done!
March 8, 2022
A thoroughly entertaining read that weaves together many different themes and stories into one fascinating narrative. Not just about the only federal election in US history to be cast aside due to voter fraud, its got a rich background of Eastern NC racial history blended with as great a list of smalltown characters no work of fiction could better.
May 10, 2022
Very enlightening, both in terms of recent events and the history of eastern North Carolina.
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