HARLOW: A dramatically and really shocking turn of events overnight in North Carolina, and in an extraordinary case of apparent voter fraud involving a Republican candidate for Congress. The State Election board decided to throw out the 2018 results for the House seat there in the ninth congressional district, and hold an entirely new election. And follows a month's long probes stemming from a political operative hired by Republican candidate Mark Harris' campaign. State investigators say that man Leslie McCrae Dowless was behind a scheme to illegally collect and tamper with absentee ballots, tilting the election in Harris' favor. Of course, Dowless says that's not true. But Harris who insisted throughout four days of testimony, he had no knowledge of any wrongdoing, he made this statement to the board just yesterday.</s>MARK HARRIS, REPUBLICAN NORTH CAROLINA CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: Neither I nor any leadership of my campaign were aware of or condoned the improper activities that had been testified to in this hearing. Through the testimony, I have listened to over the past three days, I believe a new election should be called.</s>HARLOW: Dianne Gallagher has been following this. She joins us this morning from Raleigh, North Carolina. Look, he himself says a new election should be called. That's a dramatic about-face. Do we know what led him to this?</s>DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, first, let me tell you what both Harris and his attorneys say led him to this. That despite for the past two and a half months, urging the board to immediately certify him as a congressman and calling accusations of election fraud liberal conspiracies. They say he came into this hearing with an open mind, and that the testimony was extremely compelling, starting with the very first witness, a worker who under oath said that, that operative paid her to illegally collect ballots to forge signatures, to sign ballots as a witness that she did not witness. But really, it was likely the testimony of his oldest son, John Harris that was the most damaging, both emotionally and likely in the eyes of the board.
Ballot Fraud Leads to New North Carolina Congressional Election.