ICE, DOJ Seek NC Voter Records in “Fishing Expedition”

In a probe instigated by the Immigration & Customs Enforcement service, Assistant U.S. attorney Sebastian Kielmanovich of the Eastern District of NC issued subpoenas late in August demanding that forty-four North Carolina counties turn over millions of voter records no later than Sept. 25, 2018.

The request includes Wake County, home of the state capital, Raleigh. The Department of Justice wants all “poll books, e-poll books, voting records, and/or voter authorization documents, and executed official ballots (including absentee ballots)” dating from August 30, 2013 through August 30, 2018.

A separate subpoena to the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement asks for even more: voter registration and early voting applications, absentee ballot request forms, “any and all ‘admission or denial of non-citizen return forms’,” and any records of voter registrations canceled or revoked in that period. The request for eight years of records from the state would require more than 15 million documents and images, the state board said.

Josh Lawson, general counsel for the Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement, responded with a letter to Assistant U.S. Attorney Sebastian Kielmanovich.

“The subpoenas faxed to county boards are the most exhaustive on record,” he wrote. “In our view, compliance with the subpoena as written will materially affect the ability of county administrators to perform time-critical tasks ahead of absentee voting and early voting.” The state must have all ballots prepared in mid-September to begin filling absentee ballot requests for military personnel and other overseas residents by Sept. 25.

At press time, the U.S. attorney had tentatively agreed to a delay until late November.

Of special concern about the subpoenas is that absentee ballots identify the voter and whom he or she voted for, completely undermining the sanctity of the secret ballot in American elections. Similarly, an estimated 2.2 million ballots cast by early voters can also be traced back to individual voters.

According to Gerry Cohen, former special counsel to the General Assembly, the “depth of the request indicates [a] fishing expedition. What will they do with millions of ballots?”

The Southern Coalition for Social Justice agreed that ICE is apparently on a fishing exhibition to try to find “undocumented aliens” in the state. The subpoenas, along with recent federal prosecutions for illegal voting (19 individuals out of more than 30 million ballots cast over the past eight years), are an attempt “to criminalize the ballot box and drum up evidence of ‘voter fraud’ may be replicated on a much larger scale,” the SCSJ said in a statement.

ICE spokesman Bryan Cox refused to comment beyond saying he is “not able to discuss the details of an ongoing federal investigation.”