Margaret Elizabeth Sherrill registered to vote in Mecklenburg County in October of 2004 and voted absentee in the presidential election in November of 2004.
The problem- the Walnut Street address that she listed as her residence- is not her residence.
Shawncey Fredrick reports that he moved into his Charlotte home on Walnut Street almost 20 years ago, where he lives alone, and has “no clue” who Margaret Elizabeth Sherrill is, or why she is registered to vote at his residence. For nearly ten years, Fredrick has been receiving mail with Sherrill’s voter registration cards and other election mail.
The proper course of action if this happens to you – mark the mail that the recipient does not live at the address and return to sender. “I would have loved it if [Fredrick] had put it back in the mail and said not at this address,” said the head of the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections, Michael Dickerson. Taking this action, according to Dickerson, would begin the “inactive procedure,” by which voters who are likely deceased or have moved can be marked in order to prevent voter fraud.
However, one thing is crystal clear. The process by which voters are verified after registration does not work. It is simply ineffective and amounts to nothing but increases in government spending.
The solution: voter photo identification for both in-person and absentee voting. While a very few find this controversial, the facts are truly quite simple. Requiring voters to show identification before voting is a huge step in the direction of eliminating voter fraud. A voter photo ID requirement would have helped to prevent Margaret Elizabeth Sherrill from using an address that was not her own to vote in 2004. At the very least, it would have flagged the situation 8 years ago, prompting an investigation by the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections to have taken place much sooner.
While as of now there can be no claims made of voter fraud by the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections, it is not the only incident of its kind. Similar incidents and failure to update changes in address to the Board of Elections contribute to a large amount of voter impurities in North Carolina elections.
If you must show a form of identification to board a plane, buy lottery tickets, buy cough medicine- why wouldn’t you need to show identification to exercise your participation in the government process?
The original article for this story:
http://statesville.wbtv.com/news/news/75338-charlotte-man-stranger-using-my-address-vote
actually this is more likely a transposed address on Margaret’s voter registration. Margaret is listed as registered 517 Walnut St in Davidson. There is also a Faye Reid registered at 318 Walnut Street in Davidson. Margeret appears to be Faye’s sister.
According to Davidson College, Margaret Elizabeth Sherrill lives with her sister Faye Reid in Davidson
http://public.davidson.edu/psychology/krmulthaup/reminiscencef11/fayereid/family.html
“Margaret Elizabeth Reid was born eight years earlier than Faye, in 1928, which created a large age gap in childhood. However, once the difference in years between them became less significant, they became the greatest of friends with an invaluable relationship. Faye’s sister got married in her twenties at Williamson’s Chapel United Methodist Church to a man named Ken Sherrill. It was a small and simple, but very special wedding. Faye was the only attendant and her mother made the wedding dress. After the wedding, life changed for Faye as her sister moved out of the family home, but she did not move far away. Once married, Margaret acquired a new stepdaughter, Elaine Satterfield, and later two step-granddaughters that live in Charlotte today. Her stepdaughter was one of the first females to receive a soccer scholarship at Davidson College.
After her husband passed away, Margaret moved in with Faye and the two of them still live together happily as the closest of friends. Faye describes Margaret as one of the kindest people she knows. Everyone gets along with her and she is truly a light in others’ lives.
“A loyal sister is worth a thousand friends.”- Marian Eigerman
Gerry, your explanation does nothing to change the fact of Victoria’s premise – North Carolina’s voter verification laws are a farce. The law does nothing but require the counties to send voter cards to an address that the voter deems their mailing address (not their residence address).
Even though the law reads as though the mailings will verify a residence address – North Carolina allows them to be mailed to any mailing address – PO Boxes, business addresses and even out-of-state addresses. And, in this case, the voter who lived at the address in question did not know what he was supposed to do with the mailing – causing a break in the “verification process”. We can be sure this happens frequently in every county, leaving thousands of people on the voter lists who have not been “verified” and who probably should not be on the rolls anyway.
I understand your point about the verification issue, but the headline of the post was “More Evidence to Support a Photo Voter ID Requirement”. Victoria Wakefield’s statement that “A voter photo ID requirement would have helped to prevent Margaret Elizabeth Sherrill from using an address that was not her own to vote in 2004” is not really on point. She did not really use an address that was not hers, the house number on the voter registration address was inaccurate. There’s no evidence that someone else voted under her name. How about just deleting the tag “voter fraud” from the original post, as it does Margaret Sherill a real disservice. There was no fraud.
OK, I now have all the facts, having talked to both Mecklenburg County Election Supervisor Mike Dickerson and to Faye Reid over the phone. Margaret Sherrill did in fact live at 517 Walnut Street in Davidson in 2004 and registered and voted absentee from there in 2004. She got a voter registration card at that address in 2004. In 2005, Mecklenburg County switched from its own election database to the state database, and in the transfer “Davidson” somehow was changed to “Charlotte” for Margaret in the database, and election mail 2005 to date for Margaret began going to 517 Walnut Street in Charlote where the complaining gentleman who got her mail lived. Margaret Sherrill moved two blocks down Walnut Street in Davdison to live with her sister in the intervening years between ’04 and now. Her sister Faye said that she knew from personal observation that her sister Margaret properly voted absentee from her address at 517 Walnut Street in 2004. No one voted under her name. Voter ID would have done nothing in this case. No fraud was committed, and the tag “voter fraud” on your initial post should be removed. Sorry that I initially said that the street number had gotten transposed when it was actually the city that got transposed. Mike Dickerson had her original handwritten voter registration application from 2004 in front of him while we talked.
So a person who is legally eligible to vote does so but due to a clerical error in voting records we should implement voter ID laws with all the accompanying costs and bureaucracy. Conservative are usually big proponents of cost benefit analysis. I think such an analysis is in order here.
How is asking someone to show their ID on election day “accompanying costs and bureaucracy”? Like the article states you have to show your ID to board a plane, get cough medicine, etc. I wish someone would explain to me why that’s such a hardship on people.
The only voter fraud proven was by Conservatives. Thank you Gerry for doing what any responsible, legitimate blogger would do…. investigating not just propaganda promoting
Margaret Sherill voted by mail. Two years after she voted the city on her voter registration was accidentally changed in a database upgrade by the board of elections and someone else began getting her mail at the same street address in a different city. From that we get Victoria Wakefield accusing her of using an address other than her to vote in 2004 when this was totally not true. When will Victoria apologize to Ms. Sherrill? When will the “voter fraud” tag be removed from this post? It took me all of 30 minuites to research and debunk this story and talk to Margaret Sherril’s sister who was not happy her sister was accused of a criminal offense. A month has gone by.
Susan Myrick or Victoria Wakefield: it’s been almost a year. When are you planning to retract your libelous accusation that Margaret Sherrill committed voter fraud?