Editor’s note: This story was revised on February 7 to clarify that the county board has doubt about the the results of the November election in Godwin.
Godwin’s town commissioner elections from November cannot be trusted, the Cumberland County Board of Elections unanimously decided on Friday, based on its conclusion that the former town clerk could have influenced voters with text messages and telephone calls.
The board’s vote is a recommendation to the North Carolina State Board of Elections, which makes the final decision whether to nullify Godwin’s election and order a new one.
If a new election is ordered, it likely would be scheduled for May 12, according to county elections Chair Linda Devore. That’s the date for run off elections from the March 3 primary.
A new election would give candidate Dennis Smith Sr. another chance to defeat one of the four incumbent commissioners. In November, he was in a five-way race with the four incumbents, and he came five voters short of winning one of the seats. He had 20 votes to fourth-place finisher George Cooper Jr., who received 25. The entire election had just 45 voters. Godwin, which is northeast of Fayetteville in Cumberland County, has about 160 people and 120 registered voters.
Smith challenged the results after learning that Jacqueline Cooper-Kelley, the town clerk at the time, sent at least one text message from Town Hall during her workday to tell voters to vote only for the four incumbents.
State law says municipal employees can politic on their own time, but it’s illegal to do so while they are working or while they are at their workplace.
“I’m happy that I won,” Smith said after the hearing on Friday. “I didn’t know which way it was gonna go. Only thing I know is I was gonna go in and tell the truth, and see what happened. That’s exactly what I did.”
Cooper-Kelley, whom Godwin Mayor Willie Burnette said was fired in January, declined to comment after the hearing.
The state elections board could consider the Godwin election as soon as its next meeting on Wednesday, elections spokesperson Jason Tyson told CityView.
From Skeptics to Believers
When Smith challenged the election results, the county elections board ruled against him on December 2. Even though Cooper-Kelley testified she texted two people from Town Hall during her work hours, the board decided that wasn’t enough to order a new election.
With the election’s five-vote margin, Cooper-Kelley would have had to have influenced at least three voters’ decisions to alter the outcome.
Smith appealed to the state elections board, which on December 22 ordered the county board to give him a new hearing to present more evidence.
In hearings on January 16 and Friday, witnesses testified that Cooper-Kelley texted at least six people and told them to vote for the incumbents. Cooper-Kelley said Friday she texted five of them from home and before her work hours on Election Day, when and where it was legal for her to do so.
According to testimony, one of the text messages Cooper-Kelley sent from her home says in part, “I didn’t have a chance to call you earlier, but if you are voting today, would you please vote for George Cooper, Joseph Smith, Ronald McNeill, and Scarlet Hall. We would like to keep the board with the same commissioners.”
Election board members said they were troubled that Cooper-Kelley testified in December she texted just two people, while on Friday she said it was six. And they wondered if she contacted more people.
“Every single one of those messages that were sent, she states and starts off with, ‘I didn’t get a chance to call,’” board member Ryan Johnson said. “That tells me, ‘I have called others. I just didn’t get a chance to call you.’”
“I think it’s an open question as to how much influence, what she attempted to have, during her work hours, not only on the day of the election, but perhaps also leading up to the election,” Devore said. “Because an election starts with early voting and with absentee voting weeks before Election Day.
“And so it concerns me, and in my opinion, it does cast doubt on the outcome of the election of town commissioner in this race,” she said.
The elections board voted 5-0 that there was substantial evidence of a violation of election law, or misconduct or irregularities, sufficient to cast doubt on the election results. It voted unanimously to send the finding to the state elections board to consider whether to order a new election.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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