Election board: Haywood elections can be trusted

Nov. 5—As the Nov. 8 election comes down to the wire, Election Day is the culmination of months and months of work not just for those vying for public offices, but for the election officials ensuring the process is beyond reproach.

During the most recent Haywood County Board of Elections meeting — gatherings that have been held weekly since absentee ballots began pouring in — election officials took a few moments to explain the many reasons voters can have the utmost confidence in the election process.

Trudy Schmidt, the newest Republican member of the board who was sworn in just three months ago, said before applying for the position she asked whether she could see every step of the process that happens during voting.

What she saw convinced her that, "we do it right in Haywood County."

Chief Election Judge Danny Davis said, while all the election judges are political appointees, the minute the Haywood election board members walk into a board meeting, politics is left at the door. Davis, a Democrat who is serving his third year on the board, was appointed to his position by N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper.

Every county election board in North Carolina has five members who are registered voters in that county. The two main political parties submit a list of candidates to the N.C. Board of Elections, which selects two Democrats and two Republicans, while the governor appoints the board chairman.

Davis said the state selects two random precincts to be audited each election, a process that compares actual paper ballots to the number of votes cast. There are also times when a state recount is ordered and teams of Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated voters are called in to verify the totals.

In 2020, for instance, the number of votes cast was the largest ever in Haywood, and in both the random precinct audit and the hand-to-eye recount, there was not a single discrepancy, Davis said.

As a retired judge and mediator, Davis said laws and evidence are what matter, and that is how elections are handled in Haywood and across the state.

"I don't know what more we could do to check and double-check," he said, "and I suspect every board in North Carolina is just like us, citizens doing a job not for us but for you."

Howard Sorrells, a Democratic appointee serving his third year on the board, compared the work of an election board to that of an undertaker.

"There is no leeway for a mistake," he said. "We have never had a motion before us that we don't all agree on."

Sorrells said voters can trust the board and the Haywood election board employees "100%," and said if there is a problem, voters should bring it to the board, which will try to solve it.

Election laws and processes across North Carolina are dictated by state law and protocols set forth by the state election board. But three-year Democratic board member June Ray, who is the county's former clerk of court, said state elections aren't as unified as the court system across the state.

Republican board member Elizabeth Norris, who is the board secretary, has served on the Haywood County election board for nine years.

"I've seen a good many elections and know that Haywood County abides by all the state regulations and legislative statutes," she said. "I know elections have been fair and offered an equal opportunity for voting to all in Haywood County."

Board members expressed the utmost confidence in the election board staff of four — Director Robert Inman, Doyle Teague, Ann Boyd and Jeremy Fish. They said they would put them up against any election staffer in the state and felt certain they would emerge at the very top.

Inman said many of those concerned about election integrity worry that the process could be tampered with via the internet. However, at no time is any election apparatus ever connected to the internet, he stressed. The voting machines generate a paper ballot that is then fed into the tabulating machine. There is absolutely no chance for the process to go awry, as there is a paper trail that can be verified.

During the recent election board meeting, Inman passed out five equally sized stacks of ballots that had been returned by mail. Each board spent the next hour or so verifying that the signatures on the envelope were either notarized or had a witness before they were counted.

The ballots dealt with at each meeting are kept in a separate package noting the day they were examined and then placed in a locked box.

The first ballots tabulated on election night at 7:30 p.m. after the polls close are all the early voting and absentee ballots — whether they were submitted by mail or cast at one of the three early voting sites in Haywood.

These typically represent about half of the votes cast in an election, but it also depends on the number of Election Day voters. The early voting/absentee votes are the first ones posted on the state election website dashboard.

Tuesday votingThe early voting process has wrapped up, and the last chance to cast a ballot in the Nov. 8 General Election will be from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at assigned precincts.

Voters who are unsure where their precinct is can look it up through the state election site or can call the local elections office.

A state election board news release issued a news release advising voters how to rise above the noise this election season.

The release said state continues to receive complaints and questions about mass mailings and text messages to voters about the election and stressed these are not coming from either the state or county boards of elections, but are instead coming from political groups.

The State Board offered the following tips and information on how to navigate these voting-related communications:

—Get accurate information about elections from state and county election officials.

—If a text message claims you have not yet voted, but you have, you can see that your vote counted through the State Board's Voter Search tool.

—Do not vote twice if you get a text message saying you have not yet voted. Groups sending these texts may not be using up-to-date information about your vote. Voting twice in an election is a crime.

—If you receive a text message or mailer that you believe includes false or misleading information, send a photo or screenshot, along with any other pertinent information, to misinformation@ncsbe.gov.