In the picturesque town of Lake Santeelah, 200 homes are mostly owned by permanent residents of Florida and Georgia, according to the town’s website.
The town is one of several mountain communities in North Carolina where second homes are in abundance. The state has some of the highest rates of vacation home ownership in the country.
In 2021, a handful of voters from out-of-state and in other North Carolina counties allegedly changed their voter registration in order to flip control of the town council, according to council member Diana Simon.
“I don't mind people voting. I'm concerned when they fraudulently register,” Simon said.
Simon challenged 11 voter registrations in 2021, and 8 voter registrations 2022, according to the Smoky Mountain News. This year, despite winning the election, Simon challenged 6 voter registrations.
Simon’s challenges described voters registered in Lake Santeetlah who own properties in other places with previous voter registrations in those locations. She also alleged property records showed those other houses listed as primary residences.
Simon testified during previous county board of elections meetings that she took photos of other Lake Santeetlah voters’ houses to show that they are unoccupied most of the time.
“We presented 10 and a half hours of evidence. I had taken pictures, daily pictures, of the Emerson home when it was vacant,” Simon told BPR referring to her previous challenge against Tina Emerson, now a lame-duck council member after losing her reelection bid this year.
Emerson declined to comment.
At least seven voters registered in Graham County for the 2021 municipal elections, moved their registration back to their previous address in other counties in 2022, then registered again in Graham for the 2023 election. Five of those voters come from the same family who also have a home in Buncombe County.
Simon’s 2021 challenges were dismissed because of a paperwork error.
After she filed challenges again in 2022, the county board alerted the State Board of Elections, which assigned the case to an investigator in early August 2023. The investigation is ongoing.
Simon dropped her claims this year after she and her political allies won control of the town council.
Simon was not the only challenger; Jim Hager also filed challenges in 2021 after losing his seat. He won election back to the council this year.
The controversies may have driven turnout which reached 45% this year, a near unheard of number for municipal elections where an average 16% of people vote statewide, according to the NC Board of Elections.
According to political scientists, conflict can drive turnout.
The six voter challenges Simon filed in 2023 were against voters she claimed did not live in the town.
“I challenged Dean and Linda Hutsell and three of their daughters for fraudulently registering to vote,” Simon wrote in a November 8 email to her supporters. “All five claim that they reside in a Town of Lake Santeetlah house that is known to be under construction since 2021. The house still looks to be a construction site and has yet to be occupied by any Hutsell family members. The Hutsells actually domicile in Fairview, NC.”
Voter registration records show the Dean and Linda Hutsell were registered in Buncombe County from 1992 to 2020. They registered in Graham in 2021, returned to Buncombe in 2022, then came back to Graham in 2023.
Dean Hutsell could not be reached by BPR for comment.
Simon dropped the challenges.
“The new Council wants to move forward in a more positive and less hostile environment for the future,” Simon wrote in an email to BPR.
Although she withdrew the challenges, Simon still hopes they “will be reviewed and added to the ongoing investigation” of the registration switching, she said in an email.
But even if the type of address switching Simon is alleging is found to be improper or illegal, it is a type of voter fraud that could only be carried out by those wealthy enough to own, or at least rent, a second home. It could also only be effective in small municipal races like Lake Santeetlah’s.
What does the law say?
In North Carolina, residency is determined by “fixed” habitation, according to the State Board of Elections. State law requires a voter to establish residency at an address 30 days before an election and have “the intention of returning” to that address even when away from home for a while.
State law does not offer strict standards to determine what counts as fixed habitation or established residency, and enforcement of the rules requires vigilance by other voters registered in the same communities.
The State Board of Elections can investigate registrations, but it cannot remove them.
“If an NCSBE investigation revealed evidence that a voter is ineligible, that could be referred to the county board, but a voter challenge process would still have to take place (unless the registrant voted elsewhere, in which case the registrant could be administratively removed),” according to Pat Gannon, spokesperson for the State Board of Elections.
If the voter is ineligible, Simon or another Lake Santeetlah voter may have to file yet another voter challenge.
The state’s investigation “could also result in referral to the local [district attorney] to consider possible charges,” Gannon wrote.
That step is exceedingly rare.
There were only 358 complaints made to the state board between September 2020 and January 2022, a period when more than 5.5 million votes were cast statewide. Only 61 cases were referred to district attorneys. One of those was for false swearing, a broad term which would include falsely claiming an address on a voter registration form.
Intentionally lying on a voter registration form is a Class I felony, the lowest level felony.
Gannon said, “there would also need to be evidence that the person knew that they had not established residency but claimed it anyway” in order to refer the case for prosecution.
“And for them to be convicted, it would require proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Gannon wrote in email responses to BPR.
The burden is a much higher standard of evidence than it would take simply to remove challenged voters from the rolls.
Former NC Congressman and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows faced questions about his voter registration in 2020.
Meadows allegedly registered to vote at an address where he never resided and cast a vote using that address in the 2020 election, according to an investigation by The New Yorker.
Meadows and his wife also had active registrations in Virginia and South Carolina, according to the AP.
Macon County voters challenged Meadows’ registration and he was removed from the voter rolls.
While many cases are never referred to the local district attorney, Meadows’ case was referred. The local district attorney recused herself because Meadows contributed money to her campaign and endorsed her candidacy, BPR reported in 2021.
The case was referred to North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein who asked the State Bureau of Investigation to look into Meadow’s voter registration in the Western North Carolina county. Meadows and his wife ultimately weren’t charged by the state, according to AP.
In Lake Santeetlah, Simon retracted her challenges on November 15. All challenged voters remain on the rolls. The Graham County Board of Elections finalized the election results on November 17.
All election results will be finalized in the state canvass on November 28.
