A county commissioner’s angst about a potential outlet for voter fraud was quickly put to rest this week by a rather matter-of-fact response from Alamance County’s attorney.
The county attorney delivered this nip to the figurative bud on Tuesday when Steve Carter, the vice chairman of Alamance County’s commissioners, flourished a packet of blank voter registration forms at the end of his board’s latest regularly-scheduled meeting.
Carter went on to explain that these forms had showed up in his mailbox in the names of a daughter and grandson who don’t even live in North Carolina.
“If you take these, file them and register them. . . .and then request an absentee ballot, don’t we have a tremendous potential for some serious discrepancy in the upcoming election?”
– County commissioner vice chairman Steve Carter
“If you take these, file them and register them. . . .and then request an absentee ballot,” the commissioners’ vice chairman added, “don’t we have a tremendous potential for some serious discrepancy in the upcoming election?”
Carter suggested that the commissioners should have the county’s board of elections look into the matter to see if there is, indeed, any room for mischief in these blank forms. His recommendation was echoed by chairman Kelly Allen, who said she still receives registration come-ons for her late husband, who passed away before she joined the board of commissioners in 2024.
This incipient probe was nevertheless short-circuited when Alamance County’s attorney Rik Stevens waded into the board’s conversation.
“The things that you just spoke about: Voting on behalf of another person, falsely registering another person, or filing a false registration form – those things are felonies under North Carolina law. So, I think there’s adequate remedy if someone was found to have done those things.”
– County attorney Rik Stevens
“The things that you just spoke about: Voting on behalf of another person, falsely registering another person, or filing a false registration form – those things are felonies under North Carolina law,” Stevens informed the commissioners. “So, I think there’s adequate remedy if someone was found to have done those things.”
