Anne Marie Yates Presented a Falsified "Petition" to the Watauga BOE

Anne Marie's reach exceeds her grasp

Anne Marie Yates, the ineffable chairwoman of the Watauga County Republican Party, stood up during public comment at Tuesday's Watauga Board of Elections meeting and stated that she had "walked the Boone 2" neighborhood -- where the Legends nightclub is located -- and was turning in a petition signed by 30-something people who wanted to keep Early Voting at Legends. Her exact words (from the tape of the meeting: her testimony begins at the 57:18 mark on the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qcyj3pYKdeM): "I recently walked through that neighborhood, and I have obtained 30 signatures on a petition asking you [Watauga BOE] to keep that location at Legends."

Huh?

Since Legends has never been used for Early Voting, we decided that we needed to see this so-called "petition."

A call to Matt Snyder, administrator of the Board of Elections, produced a spreadsheet of people and their signatures on a sheet with no headers and hence no indication of what these folks were signing onto.

A call to one of the names on the so-called "petition" produced this information: the signer thought she was signing a petition to keep Legends as the polling place on Election Day, not for Early Voting. A totally different thing. A horse of a different color.

And therefore, Anne Marie's "petition" was a bogus little piece of fluff...

... apparently done -- we have to assume -- so that Watauga BOE Chair Bill Aceto could claim at least some semblance of public support for the action he took Tuesday night, moving Early Voting on the AppState campus to Legends.

Oh, Republicans! You're so transparently corrupt!