Overview:
• Dennis Smith Sr. says the town clerk illegally tried to influence voters on election day
• He came five votes short of winning a seat on the Town Board of Commissioners
• The Cumberland County Board of Elections previously ruled that any illegal influence that occurred was insufficient to change the election results
Former Godwin town board candidate Dennis Smith Sr. on December 22 won another chance to persuade election officials to cancel the town’s November election results and hold a new contest.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections voted unanimously to revive Smith’s protest of the municipal election after the Cumberland County Board of Elections rejected his claim during a hearing on December 2. The state board on December 22 directed the county board to consider new evidence that Smith said he did not have on December 2.
Smith is challenging the election results on the premise that the Godwin town clerk illegally campaigned for the four incumbent board members while she was on duty on election day, and from inside town hall. State law prohibits town employees from electioneering while on duty or while on town property.
Godwin is a town of about 160 people to the northeast of Fayetteville. Godwin’s election had five candidates vying for four seats, with the top four vote-getters winning the race. Smith came in last place, trailing incumbent George Cooper Jr. by five votes.
Smith asserts that the clerk, Jacqueline K. Cooper-Kelley, could have persuaded enough people to vote for the incumbents instead of him. With the slim margin between Smith and Cooper, it would take only three people’s votes to change the outcome.
When the Cumberland County Board of Elections held its hearing on Smith’s claim on December 2, it unanimously voted against calling for a new election.
Cooper-Kelley testified under oath that she sent a text message from Town Hall on election day that encouraged two people to vote only for the incumbents. The county board concluded that since it had evidence of her contacting only two voters, it wasn’t enough to change the election outcome. Further, the county board concluded that at least one of the two voters Cooper-Kelley said she contacted was unaffected by the message.
Smith appealed the county board’s decision to the state board, which heard the matter via a virtual meeting on the Monday before Christmas. Smith and Cooper participated in this meeting.
Smith told the state board that he has new, additional evidence that Cooper-Kelley’s message could have changed the election outcome.
“Some of the witnesses were, I guess, intimidated, and they didn’t want to come forward to start with,” for the December 2 hearing, Smith said. After he appealed, they came forward, he said, but some are still reluctant to get involved. He said he plans to issue subpoenas to get them to testify.
Smith said their testimony will show that Cooper-Kelley lied under oath on December 2 about how many people she texted.
“The big deal was that she stated that she only texted two people, when it was definitely more than that,” he said. “Three or four people could easily, if I get those votes and the person next to me don’t get those votes, they can sway the election either way.”
Cooper-Kelley did not respond to requests from CityView for comment on Smith’s allegations.
Cooper, the commissioner, sought to counter Smith.
Cooper said the evidence presented at the county board’s December 2 hearing was misleading, leaving an inaccurate perception that Cooper-Kelley contacted two people while she was on duty and at the town hall. She texted only one person while at work on election day, he said.
She texted the other person earlier, Cooper said.
“This is sometime in the morning before anything had happened at the voting thing,” Cooper said. “Just to clarify that he was not contacted when she was in her office or on the premises.”
A transcript of the December 2 county board hearing, on pages 36 and 40, indicates that Cooper-Kelley told the county elections board under oath that she texted two people about the election while on duty at Town Hall.
After taking comment from Smith and Cooper, the state elections board considered going forward with the matter without obtaining additional evidence. That motion failed on a 2-3 vote.
Then the state board voted unanimously to remand the case back to the county board, and have it consider Smith’s new evidence.
The Cumberland County Board of Elections expects to take up the matter in early to mid-January, county Chair Linda Devore told CityView via text message.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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