Avery tax voted

down after recount
BY NANCY MORRISON
nancy.morrison@averyjournal.com

Provisional ballots, inclement weather and cell phones contributed to erroneous vote tallies reported on election night, Feb. 3, by the Avery County Board of Elections, according to board chairman John Canupp and board member Gerald Arthur.

The official results of the canvass released at the public certification Tuesday, Feb. 10, showed the land transfer tax measure actually failed by 35 votes instead of passing by 25 votes as the board initially reported.

The final official vote count was 1,414 for the tax and 1,449 against. Although the provisional ballots, which were added to the count, resulted in nine votes for the measure and 12 against, those figures were not sufficient by themselves to defeat the tax.

According to the figures certified by the board of elections, the big difference came from the Frank precinct, where the figures were reversed in the election night totals.

The correct Frank precinct figures are 17 for, 46 against, and these results changed the outcome because, on election night, the figures released were 46 for, 17 against.

There were several other changes to precinct totals that can be attributed to adding the provisional ballots that qualified into each one’s precinct.

Mistakes in transferring information may have been because of weak cell phone signals in some of the precincts where no landline was available, said both Canupp and Arthur.

Canupp said it was hard to get a good signal in Minneapolis, where he lives, and that it was hard to understand what was being said with the signal cutting in and out.

Added to the problems encountered on election night were the dangerous roads and snowy weather.

Election board members said they grew concerned about the safety of precinct officials if they tried to come into Newland to bring results, so board members told precinct officials to call in their results, secure their machines and ballots, and bring them in the next day. Since the ballots weren’t taken physically to the election office on election night, the results given out were those figures taken over the phone.

Also, according to the board, there was a one-vote error with one of the machines.

“Machines are not infallible,” Arthur said. “If the wrong information is put in, the results are wrong.”

Board members said their computers went down for a short time on the last day of one-stop voting, and a laptop computer had to be utilized.

They were not able to access information to certify voters during that time, and one of the voters was later found to be ineligible.

County manager Robert Wiseman said: “It is my understanding that the North Carolina Association of Realtors spent approximately $70,000 on ads, brochures and phone calls, and much of the information was misleading and contributed to a lack of understanding, which influenced people to vote against the transfer tax.”

Since the monies that would have been raised by the transfer tax had been targeted to go to the school system, Dr. Keith Eades, Avery County Superintendent of Schools, was asked how he felt about the reversal of the measure.

“I was very disappointed the referendum did not pass,” he said. “I think we would have benefited from it very much in our learning environments and with technology.”

An ad placed by the North Carolina Association of Realtors in last week’s Avery Journal-Times and other local newspapers has generated much controversy among supporters of the tax. The list supposedly contained names of many Avery County residents who had given permission to use their names as opponents of the transfer tax.

A number of residents were dismayed to learn their names were on the list and they had not talked with anyone nor had they given permission.

Also, there were at least three, and possibly as many as five, names of deceased people on the list. Brad Crone, representing Campaign Connections, the advertising agency that placed the ad, and Joey Newsome, attorney for the North Carolina Board of Realtors, were present at the certification on Tuesday.