Local

Video shows possible illegal voting practices in Anson County

ANSON COUNTY, N.C. — New video obtained by Channel 9 shows more possible questionable voting in Anson County. The new video is from the same polling location but from a different day.

In the video, a man enters the voting area with a woman and head to a booth. The man later starts to leave before being told to come back. He then leaves again and hangs out in the parking lot for a while before a man meets up with him. Together they walked into the voting enclosure once again.

It is unclear what exactly is happening in the voting area when the man reenters.

Anson County held its canvass meeting Friday morning with the board of elections certifying general election results for federal, state and local races in under an hour.

But it ended with a comment from Congressman Dan Bishop, who was in the audience.

“You’re charged with the responsibility to intercede and to see to it that voting occurs in accordance with the law,” he said.

For a couple of weeks now, Bishop has been raising allegations of illegal voting practices at an Anson County early voting site and said no action has been taken.

Bishop told Channel 9′s Elsa Gillis that there’s video evidence of more than one partisan campaigner assisting voters.

“It is a team of activists who are routinely going into the voting place, with booths, with voters, and guiding their votes and that is exactly what the law forbids and elections officials allowed it to occur without reaction whatsoever of substance or significance,” Bishop said.

North Carolina law allows any voter to receive assistance going in or out of a voting booth if the person providing help is a near relative or legal guardian, or if a voter meets other conditions that allow for assistance.

At the voting place, the law says a qualified voter shall ask permission from the chief judge to have that assistance.

Anson County attorney Scott Forbes confirmed to Gillis that the board has received complaints about what Bishop is alleging and is investigating them. He said an initial inquiry found that the board believed they were following the law.

“All the accusations, they will give them the due and proper attention and rectify any mistakes that may have been made. I can speak to this: no intentional voter fraud has ever been allowed, or I don’t know if it exists,” Forbes said. “I know this, the county board of elections was not complicit in anything as for the evidence that I’ve seen.”

The state board of elections is also investigating.