By Richard Sullins | richard@rantnc.com

An effort by the Lee County Board of Elections to prevent concealed carry at one of two early voting sites in the 2024 election was squashed recently by Kirk Smith, the Republican chairman of the Lee County Board of Commissioners.

The elections board had requested in July that the commissioners change the local ordinance prohibiting the concealed carry of firearms on certain county-owned properties so it would include the Bob Hales Center.

The Hales Center is a county-owned facility that is one of the two early voting sites that will be used in the fall when early voting begins on October 17. The other location, the McSwain Center that contains the N.C. Cooperative Extension Office, does not allow concealed carry because it contains federal and state offices within the building.

Unease among long-term poll workers and judges behind request

Jen Easterly, director of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee in May that the United States is seeing “a wave of resignations with election officials, taking operational experience and institutional knowledge” with them, while “those who remain are operating under difficult conditions.”

The persistent intimidation of election and poll workers, some of it violent, has accelerated significantly since the 2020 election when then-President Donald Trump claimed to have been the victim of widespread voter fraud.

In the years since, many of his supporters have continued to organize by means of using the internet and social media platforms, and some have become increasingly willing to confront and even harass election workers, challenging their integrity and in some cases resorting to violent intimidation, such as in 2023 when envelopes containing fentanyl were sent to elections offices in five states.

The harassment since 2020 has taken several forms, from following elections workers to their cars and even in their cars, confronting them in church, in restaurants, and in the grocery store, and demanding to examine voting machines for themselves so they might be satisfied the electronics cannot be tampered with. And there’s another tactic that began in the midterm election of 2022 – submitting an avalanche of public records requests in order to slow or stymie operations.

Lee County Elections Director Jane Rae Fawcett told the board of commissioners that a number of elections volunteers who have worked in county elections for years, or even decades, are expressing safety concerns after hearing about these types of intimidations and harassment taking place across the country.

She explained that many of these volunteers within our county consider working at the polls to be a means of expressing their patriotism and a way of giving something back.

She continued that many have expressed safety concerns that go beyond their own person. They also fear for the safety of the thousands who will want to vote early, as they have for years in the past, and they are greatly concerned by an individual walking into the voting area while carrying a concealed weapon.

The Board of Elections voted unanimously on July 8 to request the commissioners amend the ordinance to prohibit concealed carry at the Hales Center while early voting is taking place, and included an amendment to the ordinance it recommended the commissioners use.

The ‘no’ that wasn’t heeded

Almost ten hours later, Smith responded to Fawcett’s email, stating “thank you for the information. After surveying my Board, the majority opposes any alteration to the Concealed Carry Ordinance as it pertains to the Bob Hales Recreation Center.”

At the board of commissioners July 15 meeting, The Rant was told by county staff that the matter had been “handled administratively.”

But the Board of Elections, which had unanimously requested that the commissioners take action to reassure both poll workers and the voting public that conditions were safe at the Hales Center, wasn’t ready to give up. When they met on August 12 in a session that went on for nearly three hours, the first item on their agenda was further consideration on the concealed carry issue. Smith had requested an opportunity to speak to the board and to share his thoughts on why they should just drop the issue.

“After polling six members of the Lee County Board of Commissioners, all six said ‘no’ to modifying the Concealed Carry Ordinance,” Smith said, reading from a prepared statement. “So, I would encourage your board to move past (this) Old Business item. First, you have nothing to fear from a law-abiding concealed carry citizen. Second, you should be aware that every day in public, you and your staff interact with citizens who (are) carrying concealed, and you don’t even know it. You have more important duties, like addressing the fact that Lee County residents are receiving absentee ballots for their deceased family members. Work on updating the voter rolls and reassure the electorate that we can have confidence in this election cycle.”

But Smith’s second attempt to tamp down efforts by the Board of Elections to place restrictions on concealed carry at the Hales Center was no more successful than his first.

The first comments made after his remarks came from Republican member Harry Stryffeler, who said “my position, and our collective position, was that if we sent it over, it should have had significance enough to be addressed, even if it was voted 6-0 or 7-0 down. We believe it should have been heard by the board in an open meeting.”

Democratic elections board member Jeannette Peace was no less direct.

“It would have been a demonstration of professional courtesy for us to have been heard by the entire commission and not have a decision made off the record,” she said.

Another Democratic member, Becky Whitaker, pointed out that the request from the elections board was submitted to the commissioners just five days before the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on July 13, a reminder that violence has been an increasing a part of American politics.

“That just illustrates to me that the propensity for violence is very real, and I want it to be on the record that we, as a board, did something in furtherance of what we thought would be necessary and appropriate to protect our poll workers and to incentivize them to want to come to work, and that it was declined by the county commission without even being referred to them by their chairman,” she said.

Smith remained undeterred.

“If each of you can see that your attempt to change the ordinance is going to go down in flames, then why make the effort? Why do this?” he asked.

But elections board Chairwoman Susan Feindel, a Democrat, also remained undeterred, telling Smith that in the next elections cycle in 2026, the board will look for other locations for early voting where concealed carry is not allowed if the commissioners do not change the ordinance this year in time to ban it at the Hales Center.

Smith pointed out that time is running short for any change to be made to the ordinance and have it go into effect for early voting in October.

“Of course, the ordinance change would require a public hearing, and then two readings, and, I mean, do you want to go through all that?” he asked.

Feindel responded in one word: “Sure.”

Later in the meeting, the elections board decided not to make a formal request of the commissioners for the present. But they reserved the right to request its inclusion on a future commission agenda before early voting begins.