Durham to Hold Hearing on Ballots as Other Counties Face Election Protests | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Dan Way, who is an associate editor for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

Campaign committee for Gov. McCrory says protests have been filed in 11 counties based on contributions from state Democratic Party to local political action committees

    By a 2-1 party-line vote that had racial undertones, the Durham County Board of Elections approved a challenge to its vote-tallying process that Thomas Stark, a lawyer and Durham County resident, believes might have been corrupted by software limitations in voting machines that couldn't accept the volume of votes cast in some precincts.

    Wednesday's probable cause vote cleared the way for a full hearing of the evidence at 11 a.m. Friday before the board.

    Meanwhile, the campaign committee for Gov. Pat McCrory announced by news release late Wednesday afternoon that protests are being filed in Durham and 10 other counties following "the discovery of a North Carolina Democrat Party-funded political action committee which appears to have paid individuals to fill out and witness hundreds of fraudulent absentee ballots for Democrats including Roy Cooper in Bladen County."

    The state Democratic Party "simultaneously transferred money to political action committees in these 11 counties," the release said. "Similar absentee voting and handwriting patterns as in Bladen County have been discovered in at least one of these counties, suggesting these PACs may have been harvesting and witnessing multiple absentee ballots as well."

    "It appears that our worst fears have come true and this absentee ballot fraud scheme may run deeper than just Bladen County," Russell Peck, Pat McCrory's campaign manager, was quoted as saying in the release.


Thomas Stark, a Durham County resident and general counsel for the North Carolina Republican Party, on Wednesday asked the Durham County Board of Elections to review more than 94,000 ballots that were not counted initially on election night. (CJ photo by Dan Way)

    It is possible, though by no means certain, if a decision is made at Friday's hearing to conduct a recount of some Durham votes it could affect the governor's race between McCrory and Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper, along with a few Council of State contests in which competing candidates are separated by thin vote margins.

    "Unfortunately, we may also have uncovered the real reason Roy Cooper fought so hard against efforts to prevent voter fraud as attorney general. These voter fraud concerns must be addressed before the results of the election can be finalized," Peck said in the release.

    In Bladen County, the winner of the election for supervisor of the county's Soil and Water Conservation District filed a complaint after alleging that hundreds of absentee ballots could be fraudulent. McCrae Dowless noted that 71 write-in votes for "Franklin Graham" were cast by absentee vote on ballots that had handwriting that looked as if the same person had written on them.

    A protest was filed today in Halifax County, and additional protests are being filed by registered voters in Durham, Edgecombe, Franklin, Guilford, Nash, Northampton, Robeson, Vance, Wake, and Warren counties seeking "a full scale investigation."

    Stark, who is general counsel for the North Carolina Republican Party, said he filed his earlier challenge in Durham County as an individual after learning of voting problems in six precincts. He expressed surprise that he was being tasked with the burden of a probable cause hearing and a contested evidentiary hearing on Friday to seek a recount on questionable votes.

    "I thought that if you raised the issue a reasonable board would go ahead and recount rather than argue about it," Stark said. It would take less time to rerun the ballots to ensure their integrity than it is taking to prepare for and attend the set of hearings, he said.

    "They have a discretionary right to count" under state law without a hearing, Stark said of the county board.

    "They ought to exercise it, and just count," given questions about the machines, the late submission of Durham's early vote totals, and reports of "provisional ballots being counted when they shouldn't have been," Stark said. Bladen County votes are under scrutiny and "there are other anomalies that we're hearing about" around the state.

    At Wednesday's hearing representatives of Election Systems & Software LLC testified that despite the issues encountered in Durham County, the process went forward without a hitch under prescribed backup plans, and there is no indication of any vote irregularities.

    Kathy Rogers, ES&S senior vice president of government relations, likened the voting machines limit of 65,535 votes to a cell phone, which can load only a set number of photos or videos.

    An affidavit from Brian Neesby, a business systems analyst at the State Board of Elections, was read into the record that corroborated the explanation of limits in the software.

    Stark said he would be hamstrung at the evidentiary hearing because he has not been able to view the sealed voting materials. That limits his ability to determine whether voting irregularities occurred.

    "We could subpoena those records, and we could hire experts and come in here and look at it," Stark said. "We may have to." He said he was reviewing that option, and whether there would be enough time before Friday's hearing to review the material if it were released.

    A statewide recount could be requested that would open those records to inspection.

    "That's up to the governor, and to the Council of State members that are on the bubble," Stark said.

    At the conclusion of the 75-minute hearing, Republican Margaret Cox Griffin voted to proceed to Friday's hearing. Democrat Dawn Baxton refused to second Griffin's motion, and voted no.

    After a long pause, board chairman William Brian, a Republican, cast the deciding vote to hold the hearing. He said Durham County's precedent is to set a very low bar for challenging election results, and Stark met it.

    "That's politics, and clearly there is a group here who is determined to protect whatever happened" on Election Day, Stark said of the split vote following the hearing. "Whether that's because they resent being asked or whether they're trying to hide something, I don't know. That would be the Democratic Party."

    On several occasions audience members laughed and jeered at Stark's testimony. That drew a warning from Brian: "This is like being in court so if we can't keep our reactions down, and under control I may have to ask people to leave."

    Brian said given the "allegations that have been made about Bladen County, and some of the other places," he understood why Stark was challenging Durham's results.

    "This is a highly charged issue. Mr. Stark and others in this community feel that, and with some justification, there is something fishy going on here," Brian said.

    Conversely, he said, many others in the community "don't understand why Durham is always the one that has to recount its votes. The basis for that argument [is] this is a community with a large African-American population, and there is a stigma associated with that. ... I don't appreciate that at all."

    Brian said after the hearing he was not accusing Stark of racial motivation, but addressing the "extreme outcry" from Durham residents who feel discriminated against.

    "I don't think Mr. Stark is in any way motivated by racial issues. I know Tom Stark very well, and he's a very honest, and forthright fellow," Brian said.

    State Rep. Graig Meyer, D-Orange, whose district includes parts of Durham, also raised a racial specter in speaking for the Cooper campaign.

    "I believe that we have seen the Republicans try and undermine the credibility of African-American voters, and African-American communities for several years now, and this is a continued part of that process," Meyer said.

    He said voters should have full confidence that Durham County "followed election law closely and carefully," and votes are being counted fairly. Stark has presented no evidence of impropriety, and if he has any he should release it immediately so the result of the election can be determined, Meyer said.

    Asked what harm a recount would create when the integrity of the vote is in question, Meyer said, "We don't believe that this is the time." The initial set of ballots should be counted and certified before a recount is considered, he said.

    All 100 North Carolina counties have scheduled canvasses Friday to check the accuracy of voting tallies. The election results are scheduled to be certified by the State Board of Elections Nov. 29 in Raleigh.