The campaign to elect Shannon Brown representative for District 31 hit another snag on Monday morning.
A written request by the Shannon Brown campaign to review the 234 affidavit and absentee ballots from two of Washington County’s voting precincts for the House District 31 Representative’s seat was not honored on Monday.
Brown had hoped for a reexamination of the Nov. 6 ballots, which included affidavit and absentee voting results. The two Leland precincts are in District 4, and at least 99 of the ballots in question are affidavit votes.
Brown’s campaign manager, Rev. Adoris Turner, said the campaign filed the proper documentation with Circuit Clerk Barbara Esters-Parker acting on information received from the Secretary of State’s office and the Attorney General’s office.
Turner said they were instructed by the state offices to send two letters to Esters-Parker and set an appointment to meet with her. One letter was to establish that they had issue with the results and the other was to request the review.
Brown and Turner maintain that it was the 234 votes that changed everything and they simply wanted the opportunity to inspect those ballots.
However, when Brown and Turner arrived at the Washington County Courthouse for the 10:30 a.m. appointment, Turner said they were re-directed by Esters-Parker to a sit-down session with her and District 4 Election Commissioner Sadie Seard.
Addressing Seard and Esters-Parker during the unscheduled meeting, Turner said, “Help me understand what reversed the placement.” He said they were notified by the Barbara Brooks’ campaign around 5 p.m. on Nov. 16 that Brooks was now in the runoff and that Brown was out and the caller wanted to know who their camp was going to support.
He noted that no officials contacted them and they had no information on what took place or why the positioning changed.
Turner expressed concern that no election officials from Washington County alerted them that there were so many outstanding ballots. He said the warning would have been a cautionary indicator to not get ahead of themselves and a cue, “don’t count your eggs before they hatch,” he said.
He mentioned that they had already begun to expend resources and efforts campaigning with the understanding that they were in the runoff. It has been three weeks, he said, and still no contact.
Turner feels they have been getting the runaround. “We want to find out what happened to make everyone so sure that the numbers were accurate, unfiltered, unencumbered, unmolested that would say, move this person out of second right now and put this person.”
He restated that they wanted to examine the process because it was hard for them to believe there were no errors on any of the 99 affidavit ballots. “There’s something amiss, and you are the only people we know to ask,” Turner said.
In addition, Turner emphasized that every single vote that could potentially go anywhere went to one person. “What I’m saying is historically speaking, numerically speaking and statistically speaking the likelihood, the probability of that happening is slimmer than slim even though all things are possible.”
Turner claims that seven times more people voted in the two Leland precincts than any time before. He said that percentage exceeded anywhere in the country and there has never been that many votes cast in those two precincts.
“The facts are that there has been allegations made before and allegations that have gone past allegations to being proven around affidavit tampering with members of the camp that we are losing to, and so this is like saying lightning is striking in the same place four or five times,” Turner said.
Esters-Parker asked Turner if he was insinuating “an intentional intent” to switch the positioning. Turner asserted, “What I’m saying is… that was the result. The results speak for itself.”
Esters-Parker expressed with assurance that she and Seard have every intent to be fair. “You all have done your homework. We need to look at this stuff and if we find an error… then come back to you all,” Esters-Parker said.
Alluding to the Secretary of State’s office, Seard asked, “Could they have made a mistake?” Turner responded, “I think they would have said so by now.” He added that the numbers from Brown’s poll watchers on election night closely reflected the state’s official count.
Turner iterated that by voicing Brown’s committee’s concerns, they meant no disrespect to Seard or the election officials, which is why they did not hire an attorney to file an injunction. Afterwards he expressed, “We don’t want to stop the election from happening, we’re taxpayers too.”
“We’re no sore losers, but to go 10 days past the election…” he said.
Monday’s meeting ended abruptly after District 2 Election Commissioner Tonya Franklin, who is also an attorney, entered the room and heard Brown and Turner say they were contesting the election results.
“You should no longer be discussing anything with them if he’s saying that they’re bringing litigation, because the commission is not represented at this point,” she said.
Both Franklin and Seard said it was their understanding that the scheduled appointment was just to examine the ballot boxes. “Well, that’s where we started this morning,” Turner responded. He later stated that it was Ester’s-Parker who brought them to the commissioners’ office.
Seard said she was misled because she was told that Turner and Brown wanted to see her to discuss the procedures the commission uses to process affidavit ballots. Turner said, “We were brought to you, we showed up for an appointment that was set to do what we came to do over there and she brought us to you. So that’s how we ended up here.”
He again insisted that what should have happened was for he and Brown to examine the 234 ballots to make sure everything was in order. After the meeting was disbanded, Turner stressed they were only talking about looking at a small number of votes, just over 200 in 2 out of the 17 precincts, “To see if the I’s were dotted and the T’s were crossed and all of the ballots were accurately attributed to the right person,” said Turner.
Brown said at the final tally the count was 1428 to 1242 in his favor without the Washington County affidavit and absentee count and Brooks needed 186 votes to even tie with him.
Turner said the decision not to address the issue with them and the subsequent involvement of attorneys is an unnecessary expense on the taxpayers. “This is a $10,000 job,” Turner said, “It doesn’t make sense to spend $20,000 on both sides over a $10,000 job.”
Brown told Esters-Parker that he was not aware that an attorney was required in order to challenge the election.
On Tuesday, Turner said, “We have received three separate calls from the Office of the Attorney General. “(We are) providing them with the names of voters we note voted in non-District 31 precincts, but had Barbara Brooks on the ballot—Washington County precincts—and names of people we know voted affidavit for us in Washington.”
“That directly conflicts the assertion made by the Washington County Circuit Clerk that all the affidavits that were attributed to Brooks,” Turner added.
Turner said he’s not certain of what the outcome will be, but they are just doing their part “to ensure a fair and impartial electoral process,” he said.
