BOEs Gone Wild: Now It's Caldwell County

Caldwell County Board of Elections--
Bill Stone at head of table in purple; Sandra Rich, first on the left
Photo Lenoir Voice

Well, it's really just one member of the Caldwell County Board of Elections, Bill Stone. He's the problem. Bill Stone is Chair of the board, a Republican of a sort we've known. Partisan to the bone. Partisan to the tips of his hair, what's left of it, which is often on fire. He's a billboard leader of the Caldwell Republican Party.

There are of course complaints against Bill Stone in his official capacity as chair of the board for fair, free, and unimpaired elections. One interesting complaint against Bill Stone: he's been hanging out and becoming an intimidating presence in the parking lot outside and during early voting at the one polling place in Lenoir. He's been lectured by fellow members of the BOE -- the Democrats -- to at least pretend to a non-partisan aloofness, and behave himself. To which Bill Stone replied in open meeting, “I am going to represent myself.” (All direct quotes: Michael Barrick, The Lenoir Voice)

Confronted with the allegation in another complaint (Barrick's got the details), Bill Stone turned to his fellow Republican on the board: “This is politics. We need to take this up with the executive committee.” That's how tied in he is with the Republican power structure, and that's how arrogant he is.

We expect the Democrats to fuss. But, lookee here ... the long-time Director of Elections, Sandra Rich (who works at the pleasure of the board and who actually runs all aspects of every election and who knows vast amounts more about the law than does Bill Stone) ... Sandra Rich has gone public about the chair of her board:

Rich finds Stone’s behavior disturbing. “As a board, when they come in that door, they are to leave the party at the door and serve all of the voters of the county.”

Indeed, Rich, who during her many years as the Director of Elections would never comment publicly or privately on board members, said she could remain silent no longer about Bill Stone. “The way I see it, I want all board members to represent all of the people and do their job. They need to cooperate, and I don’t see that with Bill. They need to work as one, not against each other.”

Sandra Rich is obviously the person the personnel at the NC State Board of Elections need to talk to.