(Raleigh, N.C.) (AP) — North Carolina election officials apparently were worried about people unlawfully taking mail-in absentee ballots from residents of one county and filling them out this fall.

The state elections board released some documents Tuesday related to its investigation of alleged absentee ballot fraud in Bladen County, which includes part of the 9th Congressional District. The board declined last week to certify the results favoring Republican Mark Harris because of its investigation.

The board sent letters in late October and early November warning people who had requested absentee ballots that only the voter or a near relative can mail a completed ballot or take it to the county elections board.

In affidavits offered by the state Democratic Party, voters described a woman coming to their homes to collect absentee ballots, whether or not they had been completed properly. State law bars this kind of “harvesting” of absentee ballots.

Leslie McCrae Dowless, a veteran political operative in Bladen County who was convicted of insurance fraud in 1992 and was connected to questionable absentee ballot activity in another election, is at the center of a probe into unusual activity in the county. Dowless worked for Republican candidate Mark Harris, a Baptist minister who tallied  905 more votes than Democratic businessman and retired Marine Dan McCready.