Voting document subpoena
By Steve Herring
Published in News on September 7, 2018 5:50 AM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Tommy Newsome stands in the warehouse Thursday that houses voting records for Wayne County. Wayne is one of more than 40 counties having its records reviewed to check for illegal voters.
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
The several hundred thousand documents that have been requested are boxed up and labeled, stored in the warehouse.
Wayne County Elections Director Dane Beavers' concern over a federal court subpoena of voting documents is not so much that it is unreasonable, but rather that it infringes on a person's constitutional right to privacy as a voter.
"It also concerns me that the general public may misunderstand and read this information and be concerned about voting and maybe decide not to vote because of the personal issues of giving away their vote (information)," he said.
The Wayne County Board of Elections is among more than 40 county boards in the eastern third of the state where the U.S. attorney's office in Raleigh subpoenaed voting records on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The attorney's office also issued a subpoena to the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement seeking records going back to 2010, including voter registration applications, absentee ballot request forms and provisional balloting forms from all 100 of the state's counties.
The subpoenas direct the information -- which the state elections board estimates would exceed well over 20 million documents -- be provided to a Wilmington grand jury Sept. 25, or before that to a Raleigh-area immigration agent.
The subpoenas come just two months prior to the midterm elections, demands that may signal their expanded efforts to prosecute illegal voting by people who are not U.S. citizens.
Allison Riggs, senior voting rights attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, said the action "is clearly a fishing expedition."
The same federal prosecutor announced two weeks ago that 19 foreign nationals were charged with registering to vote or casting ballots illegally because they weren't U.S. citizens.
A grand jury in Wilmington indicted more than half, according to an Aug. 24 statement from U.S. Attorney Bobby Higdon's office.
"Nineteen people, half of them didn't even know they weren't allowed to vote," Beavers said. "Out of 3 million voters, it's not unusual, but to punish all 3 million voters, take away their constitutional rights in order to prosecute four or five people seems to me to be slightly overkill and will cost the taxpayers millions of dollars.
"We are going to have a board meeting on Tuesday. We are going to talk about the whole thing and just lay it out what it is and let my board decide what they want to do. Right now we are in a holding pattern."
The meeting will start at 4 p.m. in the Board of Election's office, 309 E. Chestnut St. It is open to the public.
"There are going to be a lot of challenges, and I am going to leave it up to my board to make the ultimate decision of how we go forward," Beavers said.
Beavers said he contacted Wayne County Attorney Borden Parker after receiving a seven-page fax last Friday.
Parker has instructed the elections office not to do anything.
The subpoena is for "pretty much everything," Beavers said.
According to the fax, the demand is for "Any and all poll books, e-books, voting records, and/or voter authorization documents, and executed official ballots (including absentee official ballots), that were submitted to, filed by, received by, and/or maintained by the Wayne County Board of Elections from August 20, 2013 through August 30, 2018."
It also commands Beavers to appear at testify before the grand jury at the court at 8 a.m. Sept. 25.
However, it also offers the option to furnish copies, or originals if specified to the Raleigh ICE agent prior to the grand jury date.
"They want everything we have including ballots," Beavers said. "My biggest concern is that I would be turning over records that would reveal how you voted.
"For everyone who voted absentee, or early voted, the records that they are requesting could reveal your name and how you voted and who you voted for."
It could be upward to 250,000 documents, Beavers said.
Beavers said his office does not have the manpower and the equipment to comply with the subpoena and he doubts anyone does. It could possibly require a third-party company to do the work, he said.
"I have never done this, but I would imagine there is some kind of giant machinery that could be brought in to process the documents, but we don't have it here nor do we have the manpower, and we are concerned right at the moment with conducting a midterm election," he said.
Beavers said he has never seen such an order, "not even close," during his career.
"We are not really getting much feedback," he said. "The court has refused any comment. So they are not sharing anything with us at the moment.
"The county attorney did indicate that we would be allowed an extension, and that is all that we know at this moment that we will be allowed an extension and we are just on hold until further notice."
But even with an extension, Beavers said he would not be able to provide what is being sought.
Beavers said he has spoken with the Wake County elections director.
"He told me that they have three tractor-trailer loads of documents that would have to be scanned in," he said. "You are looking at tens of thousands, if not millions of documents. We are all in the same boat. We are just now getting to the point where we can actually start working on this midterm election, and we are already behind due to the legislative issues that have been in court recently.
"As a matter of fact we were hoping yesterday (Wednesday) would be the day that we actually could start producing ballots. That is what we need to be focused on. Some counties have one or two employees. We have four or five, and it takes every bit of manpower that we can drum up to conduct an election."
There is no room to change focus and totally distract the office from its duties conducting elections, he said.
Beavers said he is not sure how much it would cost the county to comply.
The state board plans to discuss its subpoena at a meeting today.
"The subpoenas faxed to county boards are the most exhaustive on record," state board attorney Josh Lawson wrote Monday to an assistant federal prosecutor who requested last Friday's subpoenas that have been made public. "Compliance with the subpoena as written will materially affect the ability of county administrators to perform time-critical tasks ahead of absentee voting and early voting."
The Associated Press contributed to this article.