Arrested in March, ex-Charlotte Mayor Patrick Cannon pleaded guilty in June to corruption charges and was sentenced on October 14. Cannon, a Democrat, was waiting to report to federal prison in West Virginia when he voted on October 30. The Charlotte Observer discovered the fact that Cannon had voted and reported it on Election Day November 4 and today, nearly 30 days later, the State Board of Elections continues to show him as an active, registered voter with a vote history for the November 2014 election. He reported to prison Nov. 18. Which raises the question: If your name doesn’t get scrubbed from the voter rolls after every TV news program and newspaper in the state reports you have been convicted of a felony and are headed to prison, what could get your name removed from the rolls?
In North Carolina it is a felony for felons to vote. Cannon claimed he wasn’t thinking in that vein at the time he went to vote (16 days after he was sentenced for a felony).
We should hope that the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections would have pulled Cannon’s ballot (and all other official documents) and made the proper adjustments to their voter data – especially to reflect the true outcome of the election before certification.
True, this is just one illegal ballot, but it begs the question; how many unknown felons cast their ballots in every election all across North Carolina?
If a County Board of Elections can not remove a voter from the voter rolls when they know that the voter has been convicted of a felony only because the board is waiting for some bureaucratic permission – we have more problems in the administration of elections in North Carolina than we even suspected.
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