The 2016 congressional primary in June was a stand alone election, because of re-redistricting.
The Democrats did not even have a primary because Christian Cano was unopposed.
In the presidential/senatorial/gubernatorial primary in March 2016, there were only 31 Republican absentee ballots. Meanwhile on the Democratic side there were 543 absentee ballots. Mecklenburg has 30 times the population of Bladen, but only had 3 times the number of Democratic absentees. The absentee votes in Bladen were quite anomalous, with Roy Cooper only getting 25% against an also-ran challenger. Clearly, there were strange things going on in the Democratic primary absentee voting.
A Lieutenant Governor candidate who received 10.5% of the statewide vote, got 76.7% of the absentee vote in Bladen County. A county commissioner candidate got 93.1% of the absentee vote, but only 45.3% of the in-person vote.
In the June congressional primary there was only the congressional race, and only for the Republicans, and only for the part of the county that was in NC-9. Only the most motivated would be likely to vote, especially when the county had been dismembered and attached to Charlotte in western Carolina. The Pittenger TV ads likely weren't running on the Wilmington TV stations. It is hard to get someone out to vote for essentially a special election, when there had been a real primary a few months earlier. Remember that Pittenger finished 3rd in every county other than Mecklenburg. Johnson had been county commissioner in Union County, and Republican chair for NC-8 which included all the counties along the South Carolina border that were transferred into NC-9 - he would have party contacts that Pittenger and Harris who were focused on Charlotte media markets did not have.
If you could identify a supporter who might only vote if they could vote absentee, then it makes sense that the campaign would help them vote absentee. Pittenger? Never heard of him. Harris? Some preacher at a big church in Charlotte. Johnson? County commissioner and Republican Party chair for much of the congressional district.
You leave a campaign card, and complete the absentee ballot application. In a day or two, the ballot arrives. A voter might fill it out himself, except he has to have two witnesses. So someone comes back with two witnesses, and asks if he is ready to vote for Johnson. He gets the ballot and fills it out.
Remember that in Bladen County, Pittenger only got 5.9% of the early vote in Elizabethtown. He managed to get a whopping 10.5% of election day votes.
Jeff Smith, mentioned in the story, is fighting off charges of running an illegal sweepstakes operation. A person can purchase "points" or maybe get them some other way. The gamer can then use the "points" on some random-chance video game, sometimes gaining additional points.
He can then take the points over to a game of "skill" - which has a countdown timer in milliseconds which the gamer can try to match when it gets to zero by clicking with a mouse. If he is close he gets more points which can be redeemed for cash.
Smith was raided in 2013 by Sheriff Prentis Benston, the first black sheriff of Bladen County. Benston's campaign manager in 2010 was supposed Dixiecrat Jens Lutz. Benston's opponent in the Democratic primary was managed by McCrae Dowless. Dowless and Lutz later went into business together. Lutz recently resigned as a member of the Bladen County Board of Elections after his relationship with Dowless came to light. At the time of the 2010 race, claims were exchanged of "Dowless was a felon" and "Oh yeah, you received $4000 from a registered sex offender". Both claims were true. The Benston campaign did return the contribution to the registered sex offender. It was not busybodies from the national press who discovered Dowless's felony conviction.
In 2014, Smith backed Jim McVickers, presumably because the current sheriff had tried to put him out of business. It is a bit murky, but the $5800 contribution from Smith may have gone directly from Smith to Dowless.
Nonetheless McVicker raided Smith's "business" in 2015 just a few months after taking office. McVicker had received complaints from local pastors that their churches were having to take care of families whose parent's had been wagering their money away at Smith's "game with an element of skill". This case is apparently still pending, and Smith has a civil lawsuit against Sheriff McVicker, a sheriff's deputy, and District Attorney Jon David for "illegal taking". A judge recused David from the criminal case on a theory of vindictive prosecution (i.e. the only reason that you are prosecuting me is because I'm suing you for raiding my business).
Jon David is the first Republican district attorney for a three-county district (Brunswick, Columbus, and Bladen). David was elected in 2010. Dowless was the campaigner for Butch Pope in that race. Pope defeated the incumbent DA Rex Gore in the 2010 Democratic Primary. Pope had a small lead in Bladen County, and a big lead in Columbus County where he lived. Gore led in Brunswick County where he was from, but turnout in the Democratic primary was low there. Brunswick County is on the coast just north of Myrtle Beach, SC, and has attracted a large influx of retirees who have made the county very Republican. David defeated Pope in the general election based on a strong vote from Brunswick County.
Former Democratic DA Rex Gore was indicted in 2012 for knowing that an assistant DA had filed false travel claims of $14,000 for travel between Elizabethtown and Bolivia (the county seat of Brunswick County, not the country in South America). Gore later took a plea deal that left him with his law license.
Jon David is the Republican DA who sent the letter last January to the Wake County DA suggesting an investigation of three groups in Bladen County: Dowless, a PAC associated with Jeff Smith, and the Bladen County Public Improvement PAC, a Democratic group. I suspect that the nexus with Wake County is that these groups have received funding from groups based in Raleigh, the state capital, such as the North Carolina Democratic Party and Red Dome. Remember that Dowless was a Democrat until after the 2016 election. That may be why Roy Cooper or Eric Holder never investigated or prosecuted anyone in Bladen County.
Jeff Smith supported Billy Ward who was challenging McVicker in the Republican primary in 2018. Smith perhaps hoped that Ward would not interfere with his sweepstakes business. Jeff Smith left some handwritten notes at a meeting for Ward saying that he needed
unsealed ballots (the note underlined unsealed).
McVicker easily defeated Ward 2,089 to 378, but Ward received 211 of his 378 total votes as absentee (55,8%), Smith who was leaving notes about unsealed ballots was supporting Ward because McVicker had raided his shady sweepstakes business. Hmm.
Smith says that Dowless was his friend, and even let him use an office next to his, but they parted ways because Dowless supported McVicker, the sheriff who raided Smith's business, while Smith supported Ward and the Democratic nominee Hakeem Brown. Brown received 120 of 121 absentee votes (99.2%) in the Democratic primary. hmm.
Ken Simmons was at a Ward meeting, where Dowless was in attendance. Simmons though Dowless was supporting Ward, but Billy Ward says while Dowless attended some meetings he never was a supporter. Simmons says that Dowless claimed to have 800 ballots, but it is more likely that Dowless had 800 absentee applications, many of which were not completed (the Democrats have applications with machine-printed names and addresses, all the voter has to do is sign and date and hand back to the runner for the campaign. The Dowless group appears to use handwritten applications. In any case, you don't want the voter to fill out the application since their handwriting may be illegible. If the county board of elections gets an application for what looks like Mrzmy Vacuumwi at 65%2# Gobbledygook Lane they'll simply discard it (or post it on the bulletin board in the lunchroom).
Ken Simmons is said to be a former sheriff's deputy. He may hold a grudge against McVickers.
