League of Women Voters questions legitimacy, intent of voter challenges

Press release from the League of Women Voters

League of Women Voters’ concerns over voter caging and challenged voters

Asheville, North Carolina, Thursday, March 27, 2014

The League of Women Voters of Asheville-Buncombe County has raised serious concerns regarding the legitimacy and intent of the 182 voter challenges brought by the Raleigh-based Voter Integrity Project. Out of 80 Buncombe County precincts, all 182 challenged voters live in one of 11 precincts. These 11 precincts are all located within the City of Asheville and include Hall Fletcher, Shiloh and Burton Street communities and 5 public housing developments including Hillcrest, Livingston, and Aston Park Towers.

“When you look at the list of challenged voters and their precincts, a disturbing pattern emerges where it appears the Voter Integrity Project and the Asheville Tea Party targeted low-income communities and African American communities. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, this has the effect of intimidating voters in these neighborhoods,” stated Sarah Zambon, the League’s Voting Rights Chair.

The means employed to determine which voters to challenge is called voter caging, where mail is sent to registered voters and a list based on mail returned undeliverable is compiled. This undelivered mail is the documentation in which the group uses to justify their challenges. The practice is notoriously unreliable because of typographical errors in the voter rolls, voters who may temporarily be away from their residence, and voters who have a separate mailing address from their physical residence. In fact, Board of Elections staff has already determined that approximately 16 of the challenged voters have separate mailing addresses.

The Voter Integrity Project and the Asheville Tea Party claim that this list of “inactive” voters opens the door for future voter fraud.

“Over 70 of the challenged voters have a history of voting — including more than 30 who just voted in 2012. This does not suggest ‘inactive’ voters,” said League President Karen Oelschlaeger.

“People move, people pass away, people choose not to vote. None of this suggests anything uncommon or any present or future wrongdoing. There is no rational basis for these challenges. When members of our community are unfairly targeted and attempts are made to disenfranchise them, the League must speak out to protect the rights of Buncombe County voters,” stated Zambon.

The Board of Elections will have a preliminary hearing to determine how to proceed with the challenges today, Thursday, March 27, at 5:30 p.m. in the Election Board Room at 35 Woodfin Street on the second floor. At this meeting the Board is expected to review available research and decide which challenges warrant a full hearing at which point the voters challenged will be contacted and provided notice of a hearing.

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About Margaret Williams
Editor Margaret Williams first wrote for Xpress in 1994. An Alabama native, she has lived in Western North Carolina since 1987 and completed her Masters of Liberal Arts & Sciences from UNC-Asheville in 2016. Follow me @mvwilliams

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5 thoughts on “League of Women Voters questions legitimacy, intent of voter challenges

  1. unaffiliated voter

    Low income and transient communities are exactly where corrupt community organizers get people that they try to register any way they can, regardless of the person’s qualifications. Some of those registrants were paid by ACORN and other heinous organizations backed by progressive democrackkks.

    Thanks to the Voter Integrity Project in NC for
    trying to clean up voter rolls!

    • Dionysis

      Cite your sources. And while you’re at it, please try and factually refute that virtually all efforts of voter suppression, the illegal discarding of ballot and other voter fraud efforts (Florida, California, Virginia and more)have been perpetrated by Republican operatives. I can provide factual substantiation for this claim.

      Prove your claim with facts and prove me wrong or slither off.

  2. Dionysis

    Oh for crying out loud. What’s to question? It is self-evident and has been verified by Don Yelton that this is all to suppress likely Democratic votes. The only voter irregularities that have been identified in the past few years have, with one exception (in Virginia) have all been Republicans engaging in these shenanigans. Fact.

    They cannot win on ideas, as they offer none, so they intimidate and suppress. That is all they can do beyond gerrymandering.

    Take the Affordable Care Act for example (although an unrelated topic); Republicans offer NOT ONE ALTERNATIVE IDEA. Only whine about it. Why is this? A. They have no ideas. B. They resent that under the ACA, they are no longer needed to practice cronyism for the insurance hacks that pay them off, so they loose the payola. They want their graft back, dammit!

  3. Dionysis

    Oh for crying out loud. What’s to question? It is self-evident and has been verified by Don Yelton that this is all to suppress likely Democratic votes. The only voter irregularities that have been identified in the past few years have, with one exception (in Virginia) have all been Republicans engaging in these shenanigans. Fact.

    They cannot win on ideas, as they offer none, so they intimidate and suppress. That is all they can do beyond gerrymandering.

    Take the Affordable Care Act for example (although an unrelated topic); Republicans offer NOT ONE ALTERNATIVE IDEA. Only whine about it. Why is this? A. They have no ideas. B. They resent that under the ACA, they are no longer needed to practice cronyism for the insurance hacks that pay them off, so they loose the payola. They want their graft back, dammit!

  4. Dionysis

    Didn’t mean to double-post, but once submit is clicked, nothing happens, which makes it seem the function does not work.

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