This is a pretty widespread tactic. It's legal in many other states. I'm against the practice.The nuts of the case was that McCrae Dowless had a little business of harvesting absentee votes in Nth Carolina in Bladen County for Republican candidates. In 2016 his efforts won the nomination for a one candidate. The loser, Mark Harris, noticed McCrae's success in turning the election so he decided to hire him for the next election nomination.
Mark's son, John, is a lawyer who did some due diligence on McCrae and advised his father flat out that McCrae was a convicted fraudster and already in trouble for election tampering. He didn't buy McCraes story. All John saw was a felony in the making which his father would also be involved in as the hirer of McCrae's services.
It is fairly simple. We'll how the trial in August next year sees it.