Paul Bass Photo
Running mates Betty Alford & Major Ruth, who presented the case to the SEEC.
Two first-time candidates rounded up students and seniors who said another candidate misled them into filing fraudulent absentee ballots. Now they’ve convinced a state agency to take an independent look.
The accusations stem from the March 6 Democratic Party primary for seats on the town committee.
As the Independent first reported in this March story, two candidates running in Beaver Hills’ Ward 29 said their opponent, Audrey Tyson, got students to file for absentees even though they were not planning to be out of town for the election; and that some were improperly led to vote for her and her running mate. Tyson denied the accusations. She and her running mate won the election; one of the opponents, Major Ruth, lost by a single vote. Click here to read some details of the voters’ accusations in this March Independent story, which first reported on the controversy.
Several voters submitted affidavits to the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC). On Wednesday the commission voted to investigate the accusations.
A full 116 of Audrey Tyson’s 256 votes came from absentees.
The commission formally made a “necessary to investigate determination” at its Wednesday meeting, which puts the case on its investigatory docket.
Now it will go to a two-person team: a lead legal investigator paired with an attorney, said SEEC staff attorney Joshua Foley.
Foley said that under the statute, if it finds that wrongdoing did occur, “the commission can do anything from dismissing the case to fining the person thousands of dollars or referring it to the state’s attorney’s office. The facts will lead to the remedy.”