State elections board dismisses complaint
RALEIGH (StarNews) – The N.C. State Board of Elections Tuesday morning unanimously dismissed John Christian Anderson’s appeal of the dismissal of his elections protests, meaning the newly elected New Hanover County Board of Commissioners can be seated for Monday’s meeting.
“The county, to my knowledge, will go ahead and seat the county commissioners,” elections board general counsel Joshua Lawson said during the meeting.
Anderson appealed his protest of election results to the state board on Tuesday. His original protest claimed that New Hanover County did not follow residency requirements when registering voters and claimed potential fraud on absentee ballots and voting machines.
The county board of elections earlier this month dismissed his protests as frivolous and without merit after Anderson presented no evidence for his claims — for example, Anderson complained that the county didn’t follow a constitutional rule requiring one year of residency to vote, but that residency requirement was overturned by a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
But another state rule required that the county board wait five days to issue certificates of election. The board on Dec. 1 initially voted to issue the certificates anyway, only to rescind its decision hours later on the advice of state elections attorneys.
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