Nov 24, 2020 (Raleigh) Today’s Winston-Salem Journal article, “Ballot re-check finds double votes and wrongfully rejected ballots in Forsyth County,” by Wes Young, raises major concerns about how much of a certain type of voter fraud occurred for this election.
Quoting Young’s article…
“after election officials discovered 11 cases of voters voting twice”
“Tim Tsujii, the director of elections, told the Forsyth County Board of Elections during the special meeting on Monday. . . the cases of double voting were discovered on Sunday as workers tried to finalize voting history records. That check found that 11 voters had voted twice: In 10 cases, the voter had both voted in person and had turned in an absentee ballot. In the other case, a voter had voted in person and had also cast a provisional ballot.”
“Because ballots cast on election day can’t be retrieved, the Forsyth County Board of Elections voted to cancel the 10 absentee ballots and the provisional one.”
Forsyth County Board of Elections Director, Tim Tsujii.
We initially praised the SBE for designing an effective system for managing absentee ballots that were mailed to a voter. They found a way of automatically cancelling the mailed ballot if a voter decided to vote via Absentee One-Stop, during the Early Voting period.
Without voting twice, several VIP volunteers tested that system by ordering an absentee-by-mail ballot but not voting it. Instead, we voted in-person during Early Voting and we’re happy to report that our actions immediately triggered the cancellation of the ballots sitting on our kitchen tables. The system worked!
Our Concerns involve both the system safeguards against this type of voter fraud and subsequent punishment these violations deserve. While these cases will likely result in criminal referrals to the local District Attorneys, experience guides us to believe the vast majority of DAs will refuse to enforce this area of the law.
NCGS §163-275(7) deems it a felony, “For any person with intent to commit a fraud to register or vote at more than one precinct or more than one time, or to induce another to do so, in the same primary or election, or to vote illegally at any primary or election.”
NCGS §163-278(28) allows private citizens to petition Superior Court for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor when the DA refuses to prosecute election crimes involving both Article 22 and 22A (See §163-278).
Now for the questions…
The alarming news of this Forsyth CBE discovery begs several questions
Q1-What safeguards did SBE institute for prevention of this type of voter fraud?
Q2-Was Forsyth CBE in compliance with those guidelines?
Q3-How was Forsyth able to detect this problem?
Q4-What written guidance ensures that the other 99 counties follow the procedure Forsyth used in order to detect the 11 fraudulent voters?
Q5-Who is making sure the fraud-detection procedure used in Forsyth is being carried out in the other 99 counties?
Q6-Since these double voters were detected during the canvass, What is the by-county and by-party breakdown of such attempted fraud in all 100 counties?
Q7-How will the public be kept informed of subsequent criminal referrals with enough specificity to enable private citizens to initiate the Special Prosecutor provisions NCGS §163-278(28)?
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