LUMBERTON — As the calls for a new election in a close congressional race grow more numerous and louder, similar sounds are being heard around Robeson County concerning a judicial race.
The Robeson County Republican Party has suggested there needs to be a new election for Seat 2 of District Court 16B. Vanessa Burton, a Democrat, was shown to have beaten Judge Jack Moody, a Republican, after absentee and provisional ballots were counted. Moody asked for and received a recount. The final total was 15,382 votes for Burton to Moody’s 15,315.
“The Robeson County Republican Party believes the District Court 16B race is close enough and there are enough ballots in question that a new election should be considered and investigated,” said Phillip Stephens, chairman of the county Republican Party.
The race for the District 9 seat in the U.S. House is under investigation by the state Board of Elections. The investigation was launched after claims of possible manipulation of absentee ballots surfaced in Bladen County. The charges prompted the state board not to certify the race’s results. The state board also did not certify District Court 16B results because of the closeness of the vote tally and concerns that the same irrgularities being investigated in Bladen County may be in play in the Robeson County judicial race.
“There needs to be another election, and there doesn’t need to be three weeks of early voting,” said Donna Dent, who was a poll worker at the early voting site on Main Street in Fairmont.
It’s during early voting that problems arise and elections get stolen, she said.
It was while working the polling site for “three weeks and three days” that she said she witnessed improper conduct by campaign workers, said Dent, 57, who lives near Fairmont. She said she saw campaign workers aggressively and improperly approach voters in the polling site’s parking lot. She saw campaign workers improperly enter the site with and without voters. She said she learned that one campaign worker was getting paid $80 a day to man a candidate’s tent at the polling site, and heard of people saying they got paid to vote.
“It’s a mess in Fairmont,” Dent said. “Fairmont doesn’t even need a polling place. There are a bunch of crooked people in Fairmont.”
Dent, an unaffiliated voter, attributes Moody’s loss to the irregularities that took place in Fairmont. She volunteered an affidavit to that effect. It was submitted shortly after the Nov. 6 general election.
It reads, “I, Donna Dent, worked the polls in Fairmont for the November 2018 Mid-Term Elections. I witnessed Monte McCollum (a Fairmont Board of Commissioners member) on several occasions entering voting building alone and also with voters. Lois Carter (a campaign worker) went in with a voter. They would meet … at cars before people could get out. I was told Monte was taking voters in the side door beside the buses. Fairmont is truly a messed up polling site. I was told Lois Carter went in with a voter and filled out voter’s ballot and put it in the box.
“I am giving this statement of my own free will. No one has threatened me or coerced me into giving this statement in any way. I do this voluntarily.”
It was Lois Carter who filed a complaint with the county Board of Elections against Wesley Clark, who managed the polling site. Clark was transferred to another early voting site as a result of the complaint and after a county Elections Board meeting about the complaint to which Clark was not invited.
Dent’s affidavit was attached to a list of complaints and concerns compiled by Judge Moody that were sent to the state Board of Elections in the days after the election. Moody’s complaints contain all the concerns sited in Dent’s affidavit. Moody also sites the continuation of the possible improper activity by Carter and McCollum throughout early voting and on Election Day.
“It was also stated to me by a board member that if (a Board of Elections member) has her way that all absentee and provisional ballots would count. Next it was brought to my attention that this same board member as above went out to eat with my opponent and others after board meeting where absentee ballots were counted. In my eyes this is a direct conflict of interest,” the complaint document reads in part.
The state Board of Election has no active investigation into the District Court 16B Seat 2 election, said Patrick Gannon, a board spokesman.
If a new election is called for, it can’t be by the Robeson County Board of Elections, said Steve Stone, county board chairman. The county board is not allowed to sit as a tribunal and call for a new election.
When reached, Moody said he did not want to comment. Burton could not be reached.
