Another person has been arrested in the Wake County voter fraud sweep – an 89-year-old Raleigh man who said he tried to alert elections officials to a fault in their system. Leland Duane Lewis said he had voted only one side of the ballot at an early-voting station at Optimist Park in West Raleigh on Oct. 29. When he later realized what he had done, he went to his regular precinct on Election Day and requested another ballot, which poll workers gave him.
Lewis said he filled out the other side of the ballot and on the way out told poll workers what he had done, assuming they would report it. Lewis said he called the county elections office several times in weeks that followed and left messages to report it himself, but never heard back until Gary Sims, the deputy director of the Board of Elections, called him to say officials had discovered he had voted twice. “I voted with two ballots, but only once, really,” Lewis said. “Half and half is one.”
Lewis, a registered Republican, said his case illustrates there’s problem. “I think I showed the system is broken,” Lewis said. But elections officials say that’s just the kind of thing that they catch every election.
Cherie Poucher, the county elections director, said she couldn’t comment on specific cases, other than to say Lewis’ case and that of four registered Democrats who were arrested last week came after the cases were reviewed by the county elections board and the state board, which referred them to prosecutors.
District Attorney Colon Willoughby said at the time that nine arrest warrants had been issued for double voting dating to the 2008 presidential election. The cases do not involve people trying to vote using others’ names, and so would not have been prevented if photo identification were required. Some of those arrested said they were unsure if their first ballots had counted and were told by poll workers they could still vote.
Willoughby and Poucher have said there are always a handful of voting irregularities referred for prosecution after every election cycle, although there may have been more than usual after the 2008 presidential election because of the higher turnout. But these cases follow a passionate debate over a bill the General Assembly passed this year requiring photo identification at the polls. Legislators failed to override the governor’s veto of the bill, but Republicans have kept it alive for another override attempt later.
Full Article: Raleigh man arrested in voter fraud sweep – Wake County – NewsObserver.com.