19,000 out-of-state voters might not really live in NC (10-07-2025--Hour1)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet, And again, thank you so much for your support. It is Tuesday at noon and that means we chat with Andrew Dunne. He is the publisher of long Leaf Politics longleafpol dot com. He is also a contributing columnist over at the Charlotte Observer. Welcome Andrew, how are you sir? You know, every time I hear that introm you mix my day just a little bit brighter. I have heard that from a number of people. They it's like the it's the led Zeppel. I can't look. I just picked the song. They made it, you know, but I will use it and it gets people psyched, even if they hate me. All Right, So you have a big writeup, but I wanted to focus on this exclusively today because you did a lot. You did a deep dive into data that I think would probably cause many people to jim pencils up their noses. But you looked at a voter out of state voter data. You reviewed hundreds of thousands of absentee by mail ballots from the last election in twenty twenty four, and you found a pool of nineteen thousand voters that you say deserve greater scrutiny. But you're not accusing anybody of anything. But you found this pool of nineteen thousand voters. So who are these voters? Yeah, well, let me take a step back first. You know, we talk a lot about election security, but usually when we do it's in terms of voter id or paper ballots, or making sure that the voting machines aren't connected to the internet and stuff like that. But there's a whole other realm to consider, and that has to do with our election policies. You know, the law in North Carolina is clear you have to live in North Carolina to vote in North Carolina elections, which sounds obvious, but you know, in practice, there's a lot of edge cases and it's not always so clear cut. And the State Board of Elections, over a period of years has kind of cobbled together policies around who gets, you know, who counts as a resident in North Carolina. So what I wanted to do is really answer the question do we have people voting in North Carolina elections who don't actually live in North Carolina. You know, anybody who works in politics will look at absencey by mail requests, and when you do, you'll see that there's a lot of these requests are being made and the ballots are being sent out of state. So what I did is I kind of worked my way down. You know, from the overall voter file, four and a half million votes were cast before election day. Now, most of those are early in person voting, and so I threw all those out of my analysis, and then I started working my way down, all right, So then I excluded ballots that were sent to a person's home address or the same address where they're registered. That seems pretty legit. And then I took it a couple steps further. If it was in the same zip code, I didn't worry about it. Even if it was being mailed to an address in North Carolina, I didn't consider that either. And what I was left with was about nineteen thousand ballots that were being sent out of state to people who are older than twenty five because I didn't want you know, people who are going to college out of state are able to still vote in North Carolina elections if their home is still here. And then I also excluded people older than sixty five to account for retiree who may be you know, splitting time half in half. So that left nineteen thousand people with no real clear explanation of why they would need their ballots to be sent out of state. Now, like you said, you know, I'm not accusing anybody of wrongdoing, and when I did some quick spot checks, you know, some people have perfectly valid reasons for getting their ballots and out of state. There was you know, one in particular I saw was sent to RV Park in Colorado. I think they decided to take a big road trip and I wouldn't begrudge them that, and another couple were sent to federal law enforcement training facilities. That's perfectly legit. But there's a lot of people in there who look like they have started careers in blue cities like New York City or Chicago, but still wanting to cast their ballots here in North Carolina. Because they were from North Carolina. They've relocated to a different place and maybe they haven't updated their registration or something. I don't know they but I mean, ostensibly they would have to convert everything over to like a new driver's license and all of that. Although I've known people who have moved here from different states and they drive around with their their license from that other state until it expires. Basically, I don't know, Like, I don't know how people navigate these systems by not complying, because I've always complied, you know, like when I moved to a new address, I go and I change the address, I do all of that stuff. So I don't know how people get by like these thirty day dirty thirty tags that I see on cars all over the place. Like, I don't know how people are beating the system like that so easily. It's you know, I don't know. I'm afraid I would get caught. And let me back up. Also, first, I guess we should define what does it mean to live in North Carolina? To reside here? Yeah, that sounds like it should you know, you shouldn't need a definition, right, it sounds so obvious, But Basically what the law is and what the policies are is you have wherever, essentially wherever you hang your hat, right, you know, you have to actually live there. If you leave, you have to have a you know, set time period where you're coming back, you know, an intent be where you actually live. Yeah, it's like because this came up years ago when there were a bunch of homeless people that voted in our County Commission election and it changed the outcome, and there was this big challenge from Republicans about these homeless people that were busted to the polls and they all listed the men's shelter as their address or and like some of them, they don't actually reside there. They live like under a bridge or something, and they're supposed to actually draw a map of like where they where they intend to return. I think was the was the legal definition where you intend to return, which I don't even know how one goes about proving such a thing, especially as you note in this piece, there isn't any mechanism for me to challenge you. Let's say I'm aware that Andrew moved out of state, and then I see on the voter on the voter dashboard that you've been voting still in Psyche. Well wait a minute, I'd like to challenge Andrew, but I can't. There's no mechanism for that. Yeah, that's exactly right. You know your listeners are probably familiar with candidates being challenged. You can challenge a candidate's residency, and that happens from time to time, where you know, an opponent will say, well, this person doesn't actually live in the district they're trying to represent, and there's a whole process for that, and you know candidates will hire private investigators to tail them and all that. But there's no actual mechanism to challenge voters in this instance. So you can challenge a voter's residents in limited ways. So you could challenge that they never lived in North Carolina, but you cannot challenge whether a person once lived in North Carolina and no longer does. That is specific spelled out in North Carolina Board of Elections documents that you are not allowed to do that, and county boards are instructed not to hear any such challenges. You point out in the piece that these nineteen thousand voters tend to skew young, female, white, and left leaning, but then you also, because you know me, I'm all about solutions. You have some ideas, So go over a couple of these ideas that you think might actually get at this problem. Yeah, I mean, what I'm proposing is just some common sense ways to add double checks on the front end. You know, I don't think the right way to do it is to open up voter challenges on the back end. I think that's a whole can of worms that it's just not worth going down. But right now, on the absencee by male ballot portal, when you're requesting your ballot to be sent to you, you are allowed to just specify any address and in the world, really but it's really easy to send your balot anywhere in the United States. And what I'm saying is there just needs to be a couple safeguards at that step in the process. You know, at the very least, a checkbox that says, you know, here's what it means to be a North Carolina resident, and if you don't fit this and you continue voting, you are committing a crime. I think that could you know, even that small step could solve a lot of problems. But I also think that there needs to be some documentation that if you are requesting your ballot to be sent out of state. I don't think it's unreasonable to fill out a little form that explains why you're asking your ballot to be sent out of state, and that creates a paper trail that down the line. You know, county boards are able to take a look at. Yeah, in case it's needed. You've got the evidence collected on the front end. If people want to read more about this, they can go to your website longleafpol dot com. That's long Leaf Politics. Andrew Dunn always appreciated, sir. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Ashville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled within the breath, taking fourteen thousand acres of the Pisga National Forest, Their cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, centrally located between Ashville and the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It's the perfect balance of seclusion and proximity to all the local attractions with hot tubs, fireplaces, air conditioning, smart TVs, Wi Fi grills, outdoor tables, and your own private covered porch. Choose from thirteen cabins, six cottages, two villas, and a great lodge with eleven king sized bedrooms. Cabins of Ashville has the ideal spot for you for any occasion. They have pet friendly accommodations. Call or text eight two eight three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at Cabins offashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Here's a message from the text line from Eric, who says, we have fought them having a bunch of people registered addresses that are nonprofits and such are nonprofits and such that serve the homeless with zoning. So that's how they've been fighting. Eric says, they've been fighting with zoning. If it is a commercial property that is not zoned for people to live there, and people are registered to vote there, then either the registration is fraudulent or they are violating the zoning and building safety codes. So if you make a formal complaint of the violation, the organization letting them use the address must go on record saying that the person doesn't actually live there. That's a very clever mechanism. Then you have proof the registration was fraudulent because either the individual committed fraud claiming it was their residents, or the organization is violating building and fire codes allowing people to live on the property. That is a that's very clever. Eric Stan wants to know what's to stop me from registering to vote in every state? Well, some states share their voter information with one another. Most Democrat states do not do this. They do not want other states to know if there are multiple registrations, and there have been cases of this. This was the whole point behind the interstate what was it called the interstate Vote Check or something like that I forget, or interstate Compact I think maybe was what it was where all states would enter into this compact and you would share some data of your voter roles like name, address, a voter ID number or last four of the Social Security something like that in date of birth. And I remember covering this this gosh, this would have been ten years ago, I want to say, maybe longer. And I remember there was a big, you know, fact check from the official fact checkers at McClatchy, and they were like, actually, there are a lot of people who have the same names and dates of birth, and that's the reason why there were people getting flagged in some of these these these cross check these cross state check systems. Yeah, well that's fine. So once you check it and you make sure, okay, that is a different person. Cool. If it's not a different person, then bad. Right, That's why you do it. That's why the administration of this stuff, it is so important, even though it's so boring, you know, trying to do a news story about this, trying to get your assignment editor to allow you to pursue a story like this is difficult because there are no visuals TV. People think in terms of the video, which I understand, and you know my experience doing TV, I understand why. It's the old axiom that my mass com professor, the late Haini how said the great thing about TV is that you get to use pictures. And the worst part about TV is that you have to use pictures. So what ends up happening then is that you start looking for stories that have good visuals and you start sacrificing stories that don't. So, yeah, a story about redistricting and jerrymandering. That's why nobody would cover this stuff for so long. The TV news stations wouldn't cover the stuff because it's just boring video. You got the you know, the video of a bunch of people standing up on the legislative floor. You got some video and then you know usually these like cutaway shots or you know, just b roll that's running in the background while the anchor is talking or something. And that's when you see people, you know, walking down the hall or reading the piece of paper, or the zoom in close up of somebody writing something on a piece of paper but you can't really tell what they're writing. And you know, the shuffling, you know, people coming through a presentation or something. That's what you're you're left with because people can't figure out a way to you know, tell the story, and you're giving only a couple hours to turn the story, and so you have to just stick a bunch of bee roll in there and it's boring. Or you can go cover the story of you know, the three legged puppy, miracle baby or whatever, and they're gonna send you to that story because it's gonna make better video. Because who doesn't love to see the little baby? Who doesn't love to see the three legged puppy? Right, he's biggest watermelon. The apartment fire, the car crash, that's what people. It's more visually attractive for people to see that, And that's the way TV news thinks. Again, I understand why I did not mean to go down that rabbit hole, but here we are. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven and Minhill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved one, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories, all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit creative video dot Com. Travis on the text line says if you live in a solid blue state like New York, for example, it's attractive to keep voting in a swing state like North Carolina. That is exactly right in fact, from Andrew Dunn's piece at long Leaf Politics, from what he reviewed of the nineteen thousand out of state voters in the twenty twenty four election, he says, there are a lot of different reasons why you might fall into the group, but he does notice some patterns. Again, no accusations of illegal activity here directed at anybody, but when you have a pool of nineteen thousand voters, you start looking at some of the addresses. Where are they going? You look at some of the people and it's like, okay, just and he says he did a spot check. He would just pull random people, random voter names out and take a look and see who they might be. And he says of this population, though they skew younger, female, white, and left leaning, more than three quarters are Democrats or unaffiliated. The votes mostly head out from Mecklenburg Wake and bunk them. Where do they go? Those ballots mostly go to New York, Northern Virginia. That's number one and two of the top locations for where the ballots go, followed by California, Florida, which that actually makes sense. Florida makes sense because you may have a lot of people that have a second residence in Florida, right a home, a winter home in Florida, snowbirds and such. Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, Maryland, Tennessee, and Massachusetts. He mentioned this in the interview that a few of them, a few of these went to RV parks in picturesque locations. So you know, people going on a road trip for a couple of months or something needed out of state ballot or they're ballot mailed out of state. They do intend to return, They're going off to do training. Others are in graduate school, stuff like that, he says, But a lot of others looked exactly like permanent out of state life with a North Carolina ballot still arriving every fall. Again, he says, I'm not accusing anybody of breaking the rules, but the concept of this is what Travis is talking about. Living in a solid blue state where your vote for president probably doesn't matter, but your vote in North Carolina, if you're a Democrat, does, so you would want to keep voting in North Carolina because we are a swing state and look, by and large, this is kind of a this is a new thing for North Carolina to have to deal with because we haven't always been a swing state, right, So this is a new phenomenon for North Carolina to be dealing with, and it seems to me like we probably should adopt some policies to deal with it better. Yet maybe law, maybe law, because the policies of the State Board of Elections can be changed by the State Board of Elections, and that's why we have this mish mash of rules cobbled together over the course of the last. Well, now, I guess nine years or so under Democrat Roy Cooper and his appointed body. Now you've got Republicans that are in charge of the body after the legislature passed a law to make it an appointed body by the Auditor's office, right because before it was the governor, and he would put his own political partisan appointments in there. They would change these rules ever so slightly to allow certain things to occur. And yes, strategic voting is a well documented thing. People do it. The legal test should be simple. It is simple. If New York or Illinois or California is now your real home, then your voting home is not North Carolina anymore. However, the problem is there earned any ways to verify whether a person still actually lives in North Carolina before election day. It's essentially the honor system with no follow up. That's a problem. I did get another message here, Oh, it was in my email Pete at the Pete calendershow dot com from John. Another aspect of voter residency issues, I'll say, are college students registering to vote in North Carolina. I think it's pretty simple. If you pay out of state tuition, by definition, you are not a resident of North Carolina. I think that's a pretty good standard. This really came to a head in when I was working up in Ashville, where we had some legislative and county commissioner races decided by I'm trying to remember. I think it was unc Asheville, but it may have been Warren. Oh, it was Warren Wilson, Warren Wilson College, Liberal College. Small, but they split the lines, so they basically diffused the student lefty population into two different districts in order to pad the votes for Democrats. And they were listing their residents at like the student dorms as their residents, and that's I don't think that's appropriate. Like when I lived in the student dorms when I went to college, like they moved us on a year by year basis. You didn't get your same dorm room every year. Now maybe that's changed, and maybe that was just my school. But I also remember in South Carolina they would not let me vote until I registered and got legal residents, you know in South Carolina, which I eventually did before I graduated school and I started getting in state rates and whatever. So like that was the like it was much more difficult I remember I had to do a mail in ballot back to New York for the first election, which I forgot to do, so I didn't even vote in nineteen ninety two, the first election presidential election I could vote for. I did not get that done. So I know, I know, not that I vote would have mattered. Now it might have, No, not, probably not not New York. Meanwhile, do you remember Cleita Mitchell, North Carolina based election integrity activist Cleita Mitchell. She wants a federal judge to reject requests from liberal groups to try that are trying to compel her testimony for a trial this month in Winston Salem. So, when I was a kid, my grandpa died with Alzheimer's, and before he died, my mom and my dad took care of him as he got worse. Forty years ago, there were no treatments and not much support for caregivers and family. But things are different today because of the work of so many people, including the Alzheimer's Association of Western Carolina. It's a great organization with awesome people with huge hearts. I've been a supporter for twenty five years. This cause means a lot to me. I participate in the annual w to end Alzheimer's and I'm leading a Charlotte team again this year and it's called once again Pete's Pack. You can sign up and you can join the team and walk with us. It's on October eighteenth that truest field. Sign up at alz dot org slash Walk and then you can search for my team name Pete's Pack. There's also a link at thepetepod dot com. There's also a link in the description of this podcast. Also, I'll be am seeing the Gastonia Walk on October eleventh, and so you can make a team and join that one too, or make a donation and help me hit my goal of five thousand dollars. If you do, I really appreciate it. There are a bunch of other walks all over the Carolinas. You can go to alz dot org slash walk for all the dates and locations. We're closer than ever to stopping Alzheimer's. Can you help us get there? Will you walk with me? For a different future, for families, for more time for treatments. This is why we walk. Mitch Kokai, writing at The Carolina Journal about this case against Cleta Mitchell, North Carolina based election integrity activist who is urging a federal judge to reject requests from leftist groups. My word, he called them left of center leftist groups to compel her testimony at a trial in Winston Salem. This month, Mitchell filed court documents suggesting she has no relevant information in the case that challenges a twenty twenty three state law it changed rules linked to same day voter registration or SDR same day registration. Plaintiffs contend that Mitchell was quote somehow instrumental in achieving passage of the legislation, which is wholly inaccurate and which plaintiff's council now knows is inaccurate, according to Mitchell's filing. Plaintiffs have further not produced a single public presentation from or by Miss Mitchell to support their contention that Miss Mitchell influenced the SDR provisions in the legislation. See this is the lie that the left told about Cleta Mitchell being involved in getting this getting these rules changed. At the time, they just promoted this lie and they had no evidence for it, and everybody in the legislature was like, uh no, she didn't help us do this, and she was like, no, I didn't help them do this, but nobody cared. They just kept advancing this lie. Mitchell faced a September twenty twenty four deposition that lasted more than five hours. Her sworn deposition testimony revealed to plaintiff's council that their contentions regarding Mitchell as a central figure who influenced the legislation are not true. In fact, Mitchell testified in that deposition that her role in the passage of the law generally and specifically as it relates to same day registration was quote non existent. There was nothing. She didn't help them, She didn't do anything with them. In a separate declaration, Mitchell wrote that former Governor Roy Cooper publicly and falsely identified her in his veto statement regarding the challenged legislation, stating incorrectly that I had been a primary advocate for SB seven forty seven, which is not true. Is not true. Mitchell founded the Election Integrity Network. She serves as senior Legal Fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute, and previously chaired the Public Interest Legal Foundation. Since twenty twenty. She says I have been attacked and maligned by leftist media and organizations and by Democratic leaders. But I repeat myself opposed to me and my work in the field of election integrity, and I've received multiple threats against me for my work and my views on the integrity of America's elections. The plaintiffs in this case are all organizeds that engage in public policy advocacy on issues, matters, and policies in direct opposition to my election integrity work. Plaintiffs in the case are also seeking in order to compel her to appear at the trial on October twenty first, So why would you be doing that? Think about this if you are one of these groups like the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, which is the left wing activist legal firm that or nonprofit I guess they would call themselves. That was founded by Supreme Court Justice Anita Earles and who was most recently run by Oh my gosh, I'm drawing a blank on her name. Now, she's also Rigs Alison Riggs, right, she just won the race against Griffin and Jefferson Griffin, so she was their last leader. So like these, the two leaders out of this Southern Coalition for Social Justice are now on our state Supreme Court. These are radical left wing lawyers, that are the two Democrats on our state Supreme Court. Why would if you were the plaintiffs in this case from the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, why would you want Cleeda Mitchell testifying when she has no information for you. She's already been deposed, You've gotten nothing from her because she doesn't know anything. She wasn't involved in it at all. But why then would you need to bring her in front of the court for the trial publicity? That's it's it's the smear, right, It's a smear tactic. Is you drag her to court, you make her sit in the court, you make her testify, and then the headlines are you know, Trump ally in court. That's it. That's the only reason. Now. The judge set an October twentieth trial date in the case after he rejected requests from state legislative leaders and the state Board of Elections to dismiss the case. This lawsuit challenges one part of the Senate Bill seven forty seven, called the Undeliverable Mail Provision. This provision looks to change how elections officials deal with ballots from voters who are registered to vote on the same day that they cast their early voting ballots, so during the early vote period they registered that very same day. At the most basic level, the plaintiffs want a return to the scheme that predated the passage of Senate Bill seven forty seven, which required, among other things, that a same day registrants vote not be discarded unless the US Postal Service returned as undeliverable a second mailing addressed to the registrant before the canvas deadline. And here's the problem is that the Postal Service can't get two mailings to somebody before the ten day canvas expires. That that's the problem. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.