Voter Fraud (and a lot of it) Does Exist

The Pasquotank County Board of Elections will hold hearings to determine whether 60 voters falsely claimed 1704 Weeksville Rd (an Elizabeth City State University address) as their residence address. The hearings will be held on April 18 and 19, 2013. Four voters were challenged before the certification of the November 2012 election, all four challenges were upheld.

In North Carolina, starting in 2008, voters who miss the deadline to register to vote can register and vote at the same time during the 17 days of one-stop voting. A provision of this law was to require all SDR voters to show an “ID” before voting. The types of ID accepted by the Board of Elections includes everything from a North Carolina Driver License to a utility bill. Shortly after the law was enacted, the State Board of Elections decided that the long list of accepted documentation for ID during SDR was not enough for college students, and made provisions for a College or University to provide a list of student names with addresses (for those students who live on campus) to the local Board of Elections. Then, if a student registers and votes during one-stop, the BOE needs only to find their name on the list and that is proof enough of their residence address.

In Pasquotank County, after the election, the Pasquotank Republican Party checked the list provided to the BOE from Elizabeth City State University against the list of voters who voted in the November Election. Any individual who stated that the college address was their residence address when they voted and were not on the college list of accepted and enrolled students were investigated by the Pasquotank GOP. Before certification of the election results, the GOP challenged four voters who were not on the official college list, but used the college address as their residence address.

The three videos (below) are of the hearings that took place on November 16, 2012. Only two of the four challenged voters showed up to defend themselves at the hearing. Ultimately all four challenges were sustained. Three of the four voters had their ballots “pulled” and they were not counted in the official results. All four voters voted absentee, one woman voted absentee by mail. Pete Gilbert, the challenger, noted that the voter who voted by mail could very well be innocent, in that her signature on her registration did not look like her signature on her absentee ballot envelope and her first name was misspelled on the absentee request form – but since she did not appear they could not be sure.

The other challenged voter who did not appear before the Board, was a former student at Elizabeth City State University and now lived in Virginia and was employed by the Department of Defense and was a Business Instructor at Virginia College in Richmond.

The challenged voter who appears on videos #1 and #2 is a former student and now works for the University as Assistant Director of Admissions and Recruitment. He claimed he did not know he  had to live where he said he lived. And, even though there was evidence that he lived in Gates County, he said he had lived at an address in Pasquotank for two months. This voter seemed to be confused as to where he lived even at this hearing. He testified his address was 101 Queensland and later in the hearing said it was 101 Cardinal Ct. In the end, a portion of his ballot was counted; his voter record was updated to the new address. To see the discussion about his address and eligibility to vote see video #2 at the 2:20 – 9:50.

The videos are long, and some would even say they were boring, you can even hear a man snoring in video #3 at the 41:00 – 41:10 mark. But, there is good information in these videos. They are evidence that North Carolina election laws need to be rewritten.

I understand that all four of the cases heard in the November hearing have been turned over to the District Attorney.  I know that this kind of voter fraud isn’t happening only at Elizabeth City State University. We look forward to these investigations and challenges extending to other colleges and universities in North Carolina.