Potential Voter Fraud: Hearing set for to challenge "unqualified voters" outed by Tea Party

03/25/2014

Math And Magnitude: These vulnerable registrations in a N.C. hicktown are just a glimpse of a huge nationwide problem. An issue so important, that inaction could cost us our republic. 

Asheville Tea Party chairwoman Jane Bilello

ASHEVILLE — The Buncombe County Board of Elections has set a preliminary hearing for an Asheville Tea Party challenge of the registration of 182 voters the group says no longer live at the addresses they gave the elections office.

The group, along with the Raleigh-based Voter Integrity Project, filed the challenges March 14.

The group on Friday said 79 active voters and 104 inactive voters make up the challenges it filed. (One of those challenges was later dropped, lowering the total to 182.) It said 39 of the registrations it has challenged are tied to voters who voted in 2012.

Seven of the 39 are considered inactive, though they could have become inactive since the 2012 election, said Jay DeLancy, the project’s executive director.

“What concerns us is the vulnerability,” he said.

The elections board will get a report from elections office staff that groups the registrations into categories, said Elections Director Trena Parker. The board will then decide which challenges will go to a full hearing that could result in registrations being removed from the rolls.

The preliminary hearing is set for 5:30 p.m. Thursday in Room 330 in the William H. Stanley Building, 35 Woodfin St.

If the board determines that some of the challenges need to go to a full hearing, voters will get a 10-day notice, Parker said.

Parker on Friday declined to say whether staff has recommended removing registrations. She said that decision is ultimately up to the board.

Voters are deemed inactive when they do not participate in elections or respond to letters sent to the address they have used in registering.

Election officials must wait two presidential election cycles, or eight years, before removing an inactive voter from the roll under federal law, Parker said.

DeLancy said his group disagrees with this characterization of the rules. He said the group believes the two election cycles include midterms, which would shorten the time frame to four years.

The Asheville Tea Party and the Voter Integrity Project said in filing the challenges that the time frame leaves room for potential voter fraud.

There are more than 500,000 cases of inactive voters statewide, said DeLancy, adding there is no evidence of fraud connected to them.

Parker has said she has never caught anyone trying to use the name of an inactive voter to commit voter fraud in Buncombe County. She’s been with the office for 19 years.

Tea party volunteers in Buncombe County went door-to-door to find out whether inactive voters lived at the addresses they have filed with the elections office. Volunteers also mailed a letter to each of the voters, which was returned undeliverable. The letters became the evidence in the challenge.

DeLancy said he would be at the preliminary hearing. He has been to other similar preliminary hearings on challenges.

“They just kind of inform the board of what they have done and see if it makes sense to move forward,” he said. He expects that most would get moved to a full hearing.

Asheville Tea Party chairwoman Jane Bilello did not immediately return calls on Friday.

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