{"id":8079,"date":"2022-09-21T14:15:34","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T14:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/?p=8079"},"modified":"2023-03-27T15:59:41","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T15:59:41","slug":"analysis-public-records-requests-flood-nc-elections-offices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/2022\/09\/21\/analysis-public-records-requests-flood-nc-elections-offices\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysis: Public records requests flood NC elections offices"},"content":{"rendered":"
Across North Carolina, self-proclaimed defendants of election integrity are disrupting the day-to-day ways county officials preserve the integrity of elections.<\/span><\/p>\n The effort seems to be a new strategy by people who promote the lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 election: a <\/span>nationwide<\/span><\/a> barrage of public records requests to county boards of elections. The effort is delaying the officials\u2019 ability to do their jobs \u2014 hiring poll workers, ordering ballots, and all the other things required to run smooth elections.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Patrick Gannon, the public information director for the North Carolina Board of Elections, said county offices are being flooded with requests.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey’re not only coming in the form of emails. People are showing up at election offices with public records requests. They’re showing up with video cameras as they drop off the public records requests. They’re emailing them. They’re mailing them. They’re faxing them. They’re coming in by the hundreds,\u201d Gannon said, noting that the requests are going to all 100 county boards of elections in the state.<\/span><\/p>\n Public records requests to boards of elections are useful tools for journalists, researchers, and any person who\u2019s genuinely curious about the state\u2019s voting processes. The requests are normally just a trickle and can be handled by the elections staffers. But lately, counties across North Carolina have been overwhelmed, as have counties around the country.<\/span><\/p>\n Certain types of requests seem to come in waves, election officials said. For instance, they reported receiving an influx of demands to see <\/span>\u201ccast vote records\u201d <\/span><\/a>(CVRs), files of scanned ballots usually used by academics and auditors. It is <\/span>illegal<\/span><\/a> to release them to anyone but election officials in North Carolina, although legal in some states.<\/span><\/p>\n Gannon said the high volume of requests have become such a burden that they are distracting workers from the important tasks of preparing for the November election.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt is having a great effect on the ability of county boards of elections and staff to focus on the task at hand, and that is conducting a fair and accurate 2022 general election,\u201d Gannon said. \u201cAnyone who says otherwise is simply wrong. I talk to county directors every day. I email with them every day. And it’s definitely having an effect.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Besides asking for records that cannot be released under the law, many of the requests are just arduous.<\/span><\/p>\n Daniel Lassiter, the voter services manager at the Durham County Board of Elections, mentioned a request he got this year for the results tapes of the 2020 N.C. Supreme Court race between Cheri Beasley and Paul Newby. The tape, which is different from a cast vote record, looks like a long receipt, so it was tricky to figure out how to scan it onto a single page.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat did take some time to do,\u201d Lassiter said. He also described a recent request to produce every email his office exchanged with about 15 organizations, a task that required not only tracking down the emails, but redacting sensitive information.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Gary Sims, the elections director for Wake County, also said the requests can be time-consuming for election workers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSome of these are very, very, very, very cumbersome,\u201d he said.\u201cIt could be looking at a 10-foot tape or, if it’s an early voting, be looking at a 20- to 30-foot tape. How do you even copy a 20-foot document that’s only three inches wide or so? Some of them, logistically, we\u2019re trying to figure out \u2014 just one after another.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Although the requests appear to be coming from individuals, several election officials reported language that looked cut-and-pasted from a template. But the officials said answering these requests is their job, and said they intend to fulfill them.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI don’t really have time to hunt down and search who these people are or what they\u2019re using this information for. That’s not really our goal,\u201d said Lassiter. \u201cOur goal is to respond in a reasonable time, which is what the <\/span>law<\/span><\/a> states.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe all do what we’re obligated to provide,\u201d Sims said.<\/span><\/p>\n Still, officials seem a little jumpy.<\/span><\/p>\n When asked for clarification about what <\/span>zero tapes<\/span><\/a> are, Michael Dickerson, the Mecklenburg County elections director, paused for a moment.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf I tell you that then, geez, now everybody’s gonna ask me for it,\u201d Dickerson said. \u201cAre you looking for it? I\u2019ve never heard of Ninth Street News, no offense. I\u2019m not trying to be funny.\u201d (The correct title is actually The 9th Street Journal).<\/span><\/p>\n When asked what groups might be behind the requests, Dickerson said that wasn\u2019t a part of his role.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat would be your job,\u201d he replied. \u201cIt’s a public records request to me. I do not care.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Sims sees the groups behind these requests as a complicated web, spanning across the country and state.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPicture one of those CSI crime shows where they have the wall and they take the string and tie this person with this person,” Sims said.<\/span><\/p>\n A key figure in the flood of requests seems to be Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO who has been a leader among election deniers and hosted a national conference in August in which he called on people to seek vote records. According to the <\/span>Washington Post<\/span><\/a>, he\u2019s worked with Jeff O\u2019Donnell, who goes by the alias The Lone Raccoon and runs a <\/span>website<\/span><\/a> filled with falsehoods about election security.<\/span><\/p>\n In North Carolina, the requests appear to sprout from a number of groups, some easier to spot than others. They include We the People, Transparent Elections NC, and the North Carolina Audit Force, whose Telegram channel carries messages from The Lone Raccoon. One Lone Raccoon message calls for a hidden army of election deniers. Others refer to news accounts reporting the truth about American elections as \u201chit pieces.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Officials in bigger N.C. counties are better able to deal with the flood of requests, although challenges persist.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThankfully, I was able to get a person who is dedicated just to handling public records, but no matter what, it not only tries to tie up our office, but it ties up our communications office and also our county attorney’s office,\u201d Sims said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Smaller counties lack these resources. They might have a lawyer on retainer, but it\u2019s less likely they have a full department, Sims said.<\/span><\/p>\n Lassiter said that Durham is considering hiring a full-time employee to deal with the requests.\u00a0 Still, he considers himself fortunate that the county hasn\u2019t been as overloaded as other areas.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n