NORTH CAROLINA -- Search warrants released by a state court judge show that the state and Federal Investigators were tracking political operative McCrae Dowless last year, during the 2018 election.

• These search warrants were for access to bank records and text messages between Dowless and people he paid as part of his alleged absentee ballot scheme
• Investigators interviewed people who Dowless paid as part of the alleged scheme and some of the interviews were conducted in October of 2018
• However, investigators were trailing Dowless as early as May 2018, where they spotted him withdrawing money from a State Employees Credit Union ATM in Elizabethtown

These search warrants were for access to bank records and text messages between Dowless and people he paid as part of his alleged absentee ballot scheme.

Investigators interviewed people who Dowless paid as part of the alleged scheme and some of the interviews were conducted in October of 2018, before the election.

However, investigators were trailing Dowless as early as May 2018, where they spotted him withdrawing money from a State Employees Credit Union ATM in Elizabethtown.

Witnesses also said Dowless paid them to request absentee ballot forms, and then paid them to have voters fill them out, witness them, and return them to Dowless.

Two of the witnesses in the affidavits, Matthew Matthis and Caitlyn Croom, were indicted, along with Dowless, in charges of ballot fraud during the 2016 election.

Now, just this week, federal prosecutors sent subpoenas to the state board of the elections, asking for their records in the investigation into election fraud in the 9th district.

State board officials say they are cooperating with the feds.