FIRST ON 3: Board of Elections staff denounces director’s firing response

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The New Hanover County Board of Elections staff claims their boss’s response to getting fired is false.

Earlier this month the Board of Elections filed a 44-page petition to get rid of Elections Director Marvin McFadyen. Now all five members of the New Hanover County Board of Elections staff say McFadyen’s response against his removal is “a multitude of grossly inaccurate information with which we strongly disagree.” They made the claim in a letter sent to the NC Board of Elections Thursday and obtained by WWAY.

In McFadyen’s 99-page response to the board’s petition, he starts by saying Ferrante did not tell anyone about the petition; something the board says is incorrect.

The board’s petition says McFadyen is “an intimidating manager” and had a toxic relationship with another employee, who later resigned. Mcfadyen responded that “the board was insistent that something must be done with her.” He says there’s no record the board was paying more attention to his work interactions.

The petition also discusses how McFadyen handled Election Day in November. The board says they needed 400 election workers, but McFadyen was 122 employees short. McFadyen says “he did not hear of anyone that said they were grossly understaffed.” Another document we obtained, though, shows Precinct Chief Judge Pat Owens told “she has never seen such a screwed up mess as this past fall” and owens “was very disappointed in not having enough workers.”

Finally the petition says veterans were upset that military absentee ballots were available on the county’s public server and it is McFadyen’s job to protect those ballots. McFadyen says that’s Elections Supervisor Derek Bowens’s responsibility and not his. Bowens is among the workers who signed the letter against McFadyen’s response.

The NC Board of Elections now has 20 days to make a decision.

McFadyen did not respond to our phone calls, and New Hanover County Board of Elections Chair John Ferrante did not want to comment, because he says the decision is up to the state now.

Mcfadyen’s attorney also declined to talk about the response.