Candidate says operative now under investigation got results

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The Republican in the nation's last undecided congressional election said Monday he recruited a political operative now at the center of a ballot fraud investigation because he produced election results in his rural North Carolina county and other Republicans vouched for him.

Mark Harris said he didn't know before November's election that state elections board investigators found evidence that operative Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. may have illegally handled ballots in 2016. Harris said he didn't know that that evidence was referred to federal prosecutors.