03/28/2024
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By Erin Smith

The Bladen County Board of Commissioners heard from Bladen County Board of Elections Chairman Bobby Ludlum and Bladen County Attorney Leslie Johnson regarding recent subpoenas that were served by the Federal Department of Justice on behalf of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The federal subpoena was served on September 4, 2018, to Bladen County Board of Elections. The NC State Board of Elections and 43 other counties in North Carolina were served with a federal subpoena.

The subpoena received by the Bladen County Board of Elections requests “all poll books, e-poll books, voting records, and/or voter authorization documents and executed official ballots including absentee ballots from the period of August 30, 2013 through August 30, 2018.”

County Attorney Leslie Johnson said he first met Board of Elections Chairman Ludlum when the county had a couple of contested elections and conducted hearings regarding the matters.

“We have had several conference calls with the Board of Elections in Raleigh and with all of the other attorneys that have been subpoenaed,” Johnson announced.

He explained that it has been requested that the Bladen County Board of Elections consider joining the other counties in attempting to quash the federal subpoena as it is “overly broad.”

“Before we can do that obviously we have to have approval from the board,” said Johnson.

Ludlum said, “As you know we received a subpoena and they asked for virtually every document that the county board has produced in six years plus. That’s almost an
insurmountable task. It would mean tens of thousands of documents for Bladen County,” said Ludlum.

He added the State Board of Elections has estimated 15 to 20 million documents for all 44 counties under subpoena. Ludlum said the State Board of Elections in Raleigh and the NC Attorney General began to push back. ICE has begun to back down.

Ludlum said the subpoena originally had a deadline for September 17, 2018, but ICE has since told them the deadline is 2019; however an exact date was not given.

“We have pushed back and advised them we could not turn over the voted ballots without a court order. State law prohibits that,” said Ludlum.

He said now, ICE has instructed them to redact the ballots. Redact means to remove certain information that is prohibited from being released.

“What good is a redacted ballot? All the data is blacked out,” said Ludlum.

Both he and Johnson said ICE has not notified the State Board of Elections or the Bladen County Board of Elections regarding exactly what information they are seeking.

“They have told us nothing,” said Ludlum.

He explained to the Board the proposal right now is for the Wake County attorney to take the lead and get the subpoena quashed. Johnson said Bladen County would have the option to look over the work being done and many of the other counties have joined in.

Ludlum said he would like permission from the Commissioners to join in the attempt to quash the subpoena.

Chairman Ray Britt said, “I feel like it should be a little more specific because of some of the stuff.”

Britt, who has served as Chair of the Bladen County Board of Elections in the past, explained to the commissioner board how the ballots are divided by precincts, districts and the many various ways for the ballots to be stored according to law.

Ludlum said that when the State Board of Elections in Raleigh and NC Attorney General Josh Stein pushed back, many felt it was a “lukewarm response.”

Johnson said it would likely take two extra staff persons working almost around the clock to prepare the information under subpoena. The State is already pushing back and now the counties want to push back but they have to have permission of the board.

Ludlum said the only ballots which can be traced back to an individual is the One Stop and Absentee by mail ballots. Ballots which are voted on Election Day at one of the 17 precincts
have no way to be traced back to the person who cast the ballot.

Commissioner Ophelia Munn-Goins said, “I have two questions. I sort of agree with Mr. Britt on some things. Will they look at the issues that have been addressed in the past with mail absentee (ballots) and some of the issues we have found that were questionable?”

Ludlum said, “They gave us no idea of what they are looking for. We can only speculate about what they are looking for.”

Ludlum did remind the board that a couple of weeks prior to the subpoenas being issued it was reported that Bladen County had one illegal voter who cast a ballot in the 2016 election.

“We traced that back and we found one but it was by a different name,” said Ludlum.

He said they wanted all records which included registration forms, ballots, and poll books. Ludlum said the subpoena listed those items individually.

“You made a comment earlier, are you telling me your board has already approved or voted to quash?” asked Commissioner Munn-Goins about the Bladen County Board of Elections voting on the issue.

“No. I have not had a meeting,” said Ludlum.

The Bladen County Board of Elections is planning to meet on Tuesday, October 2, at 2 p.m. Ludlum explained he wanted to be able to advise the Board of Elections regarding whether or not the Bladen County Board of Commissioners approves the request to attempt to quash the subpoena.

Commissioner Michael Cogdell asked, “You haven’t received any thing that says specifically what they want?”

“You mean the items they want or the objective?” asked Ludlum.

“The objective,” said Cogdell.

“No. They sent a blanket subpoena,” said Johnson.

Cogdell asked, “The subpoena doesn’t have to tell the objective?”

“No,” said Johnson.

“We have sent back an affidavit at their request stating we will protect all of these items (under subpoena),” said Ludlum.

“When I first started reading about this I was thinking maybe this is good. I really don’t care if it was 10 million copies because I thought something would come out of it. But, if you give them blank ballots and there is nothing there then I support what you are asking us to do,” said Commissioner Charles Ray Peterson.

Ludlum explained that when ICE told the Board of Elections they could redact the ballots, Ludlum said that would be an expenditure of hundreds of man hours to give them nothing.

“A redacted ballot is nothing,” said Ludlum.

Chairman Ray Britt said, “I do not trust the State. When I’ve had the State Investigator to lie in front of the District Attorney and they don’t do nothing about it. No I have no respect. If you are going to take the ballots and if you tell me you’re going to research some of what we have complained about over the years and do something about it, then if we had to put 50 people over there to help them get it, then we would do that. I think they are chasing one rabbit instead of doing what really needs to be done. I have a problem with all of that.”

Britt continued, “I just wanted to share that. I have no faith in them.”

Ludlum said, “We want to cooperate, if there is something we can do to help. But, they need to tell us and they need to pull in some people that understand the elections process.”

He added, “The way I interpret this is they decided to do something but they didn’t know what they wanted so they said we’ll take everything.”

The board voted to approve the request unanimously to join the other counties to attempt to quash the federal subpoena.

Related article:

https://bladencounty.org/bladen-county-board-of-elections-one-of-44-in-nc-under-federal-subpoena/

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