At the Special Called Meeting of the Cleveland County Board of Elections witnesses produced overwhelming evidence that Robert Dean Hudson had voted and that his voting violation was a felony crime according to North Carolina law. The Board of Elections, in a unanimous vote, ruled that this election law crime allegation had actually been committed and Hudson’s ballot would be pulled from the ballot box. Hudson’s vote will be subtracted from voting results and the felony election law violation will be turned over to the Cleveland County District Attorney for prosecution.
Another case was determined egregious enough to also be referred to the District Attorney for prosecution. In that case an unregistered person came to a voting location. Gave the name of a registered voter and voted. Later, when the genuine registered voter came to vote, records indicated he had already voted. Then the crime was discovered and the genuine registered voter was allowed to vote and the situation was reported to the Board of Elections for handling. The Elections Board voted unanimously to also turn this case over to the District Attorney for prosecution.
The very diligent Board of Elections Director Dayna Causby and her well-trained staff discovered, all in all, 714 suspicious and potentially improper and illegal votes in Cleveland County. The Board of Elections Board Members Wayne King, Alan Langley and Doug Sharp were very supportive of the effort by the BOE Director and Staff to ferret out suspicious votes by suspicious voters. Of the 714 suspicious votes discovered, the Board only approved 105 of those votes, meaning 605 voters had cast ballots that were not in accordance with North Carolina law. I asked Board Member Alan Langley how many dead people had come out to vote? Langley replied, only partly in jest, that he didn’t know as most of the suspicious ballots had been provisional and same day registration ballots where the voters’ address (to prove the voter actually lived in Cleveland County) could not be verified. Many letters to the voters determined to have the need for verification of their residency in Cleveland County at the address given by the voters were returned by the US Postal Service as undeliverable. I suppose Mr. Langley was correct because the US Mail does not deliver mail to dead people. Meaning a deceased voter could not be found by the Postal service to prove he or she actually lived in Cleveland County. Also meaning the suspicious voters could not be identified and found for arrest and prosecution. Sheriff Alan Norman also does not arrest dead people.
Speaking of prosecution, the Cleveland County District Attorney’s Office has been generally “soft” on crimes of all sorts. This is partly because, by my observation on Court Watching trips to the Courthouse, the criminal case prosecutions are so disorganized and so many cases are dismissed and plea bargained away that criminals are not sufficiently punished so that they do not understand the error of their ways. Stealing is easier than working and when thieves continually get away with stealing they have no reason to stop stealing. So they don’t stop stealing.
