Four Eggers Votes To Remove 2 Republicans from Surry BOE

 

Four Eggers
Photo by Jesse Barber

Boone attorney Stacy Clyde Eggers IV ("Four") not only made the vote unanimous (4-0) to remove two members of the Surry County Board of Elections, he introduced the actual motion: I move that the State Board of Elections formally remove Tim DeHaan and Jerry Forestieri for "breach of duty and a violation of the oath of office.” (The other Republican member of SBOE, Tommy Tucker, was absent.)

The case was not complicated. DeHaan and Forestieri, the two appointed Republicans on the Surry BOE, had refused to sign the certifications for the final vote both last November and again on March 7th, after the special election for town of Dobson commission. The failure to sign is "a failure to comply to the laws that exist," as Eggers put it in his motion (quoted in Mt. Airy News). Their simple duty and obligation is to sign. 

Why? Why wouldn't they perform their mandated-by-law obligation to certify the results of two elections. The votes had been "canvassed," totally tabulated and verified. Simple Psychological explanation: DeHaan and Forestieri were upset that Fed Judge Loretta Biggs ruled back in 2018 (again) that the Republican voter ID law was unconstitutional. She threw it out. DeHaan especially attacked her for that perversion of what some see as a necessary step toward Christian Nationalism. In a letter to fellow board members, which Forestieri also signed, DeHaan threw down the insurrection gauntlet: "I don't view election law per NCSBE as legitimate or Constitutional," he wrote. Just too holy for his shirt.

They didn't allege fraud or any malfeasance in either election. They didn't challenge the accuracy of the vote, the functioning of the machinery. But someone had told them that he possy-tively knew for a fact that a neighbor of his from across the state line in Virginia had voted in both states. That was the sole excuse (as reported by the Mt. Airy News) that DeHaan and Forestieri offered at the hearing, someone who said he saw someone do something illegal. A rumor. One possible illegal vote in a county that went 75% for Donald Trump. 

What is the logic of that? The conclusion that "I, an official who certifies elections, am actually above the law."

Anyway, those two are off the Surry BOE. On the positive side, DeHaan and Forestieri can be martyrs now.

Surry County GOP Tries To Bully Elections Official

 

William Keith Senter, chair of the Surry County Republican Party, reportedly threatened the local elections administrator over Trumpist conspiracy theories of election fraud (in a county that Trump carried in 2020 with over 75% of the vote -- no, really). Senter "told elections director Michella Huff that he would ensure she lost her job if she refused his demand to access the county's vote tabulators .... Senter was 'aggressive, threatening, and hostile,' in two meetings with Huff, the state elections board said, citing witness accounts."

(Chair of the Surry Republicans? Their website lists William Keith Senter as the vice-chair, but whatever.)

Senter was evidently egged on in his efforts by "a prominent pro-Trump election conspiracist, Douglas Frank," an Ohio math teacher, who came to Surry County to help Senter intimidate the local elections office. Senter and Frank claimed “there was a 'chip' in the voting machines that pinged a cellular phone tower on Nov. 3, 2020, and somehow influenced election results," the state election board said, calling the claim “fabricated disinformation.”

"Somehow influenced."

How come these bullies never influence any consequences for themselves?

Surry County Rescinds Its Ban on Coke Machines

 

The Surry County commissioner whose abstention from a vote to ban Coke machines from Surry County properties, thus allowing the measure to pass 3-2, found his courage on Monday night and voted with the two "no" votes to rescind the measure that was meant to punish the Coca-Cola Corp. for its criticism of voter suppression in Georgia.

This came after a public hearing on the matter during which the actual owner of the vending machines -- which is mos def not the large corporation in Atlanta -- asked the commission to reconsider its original ban because it was hurting Surry County workers who keep the machines stocked.

Several residents also spoke out against the ban — including Julian Charles Robinson, who described the previous board meeting as “full of conspiracy, hate talk and far right-wing activism.”

“How much will it take for the far-right Republicans sitting here who spoke last week, how much evidence will it take for them to accept and go home having lost the election?” he said. “What’s it going to take?”

Commissioner Eddie Harris

West Caudle from Elkin said commissioners passed the vending machine ban against Coca-Cola Consolidated and “didn’t have a clue about what they did.”

He said he also heard commissioners talk about not wanting companies like Amazon to come to the county.

“Quite frankly, if you sit on the Board of Commissioners for Surry County and you would refuse any company to bring economic development to our county, you are a moron,” Caudle said.

At the end of the public forum, the commissioner who originally abstained moved to rescind the ban, but the two commissioners who originally grandstanded in favor continued to uphold the ban. Explicitly, they didn't care what harm came to local employees of the vending machine company: “I am holding my ground because I feel like that’s the right thing for me to do,” Commissioner Van Tucker said. “I was trying to send a message to the flagship Coca-Cola, and if there were some casualties beneath, sorry about that.”

Sorry 'bout that. Thoughts and prayers for "you beneath."

Commissioner Eddie Harris, who made the original motion to ban Coke, took his case directly to Fox and Friends, "where he said the vote stemmed from wanting to “push back against this woke cancel culture.”

“Our citizens support this,” he said. “They’re absolutely sick and tired of this outrageous left-wing mob that is attacking freedom of speech, that is attacking people’s jobs.”

Quoth the moron.

Take Note, Soft Hearts: Surry County Don't Like Wokeness

 

Surry Commissioner
Eddie Harris

Surry County Commissioner Eddie Harris browbeat his fellow commissioners (all Republican) into banning Coke machines from county buildings because the Coke Corp. of Atlanta criticized new restrictive Georgia voting laws. Commissioner Harris said Coke was "woke," and that's purely unacceptable in the Trumpist universe. But even with five Republican commissioners, Harris could only get two votes on the commission, with one commissioner trying to abstain, which under the rules became a "yes" vote, so the measure passed 3-2.

Time out for a definition: My on-line dictionary defines "woke" as "alert to injustice in society, especially racism." To be proudly "unwoke" (and a public official to boot) -- that is, callous to injustice in society -- hardly seems the hill anyone would willingly die on, even a county commissioner from Surry with a prissy little mouth. Being a privileged white male is damn hard to get over.

Meanwhile, all those Surry County secretaries and assistants are going to be displeased when they find their favorite watering holes removed from the building.

Commissioner Harris told the Mt Airy News that he hopes his slap at Coke will start a grassroots movement across unwoke rural counties:

“I intend to send this to county boards all across the state,” Harris said of the letter. “And we hope this starts a grassroots movement.”

The commissioner states in his message to the Coca-Cola CEO that the Georgia voting measure is designed to protect “the most sacred right that we have in our Republic,” casting ballots.

“Millions of Americans believe that the last presidential election was not held in a fair manner and that more voter fraud will occur in the future if elections are not more closely monitored and regulated,” Harris wrote Quincey.

We're woke enough to know what Harris means: Too many of the "wrong people" voted last year. Republicans are duty-bound to do something about that, down to banning Coke machines from Surry County buildings. 

Deanna Ballard -- Going Full "Berger" On the Citizens of Surry County

Senator Deanna Ballard (District 45) belongs to the Republican Party. The Republican Party has always preached that local government knows best, is wisest, more frugal, and "Big-Brother" state and national governments need to quit imposing themselves on the wise citizens. That doctrine is preached and rarely followed, especially when some high-ranked Republican dudes attain great power and get to meddling.

So Watauga County State Senator Deanna Ballard has joined up with Phil Berger, president of the Republican Senate and no slouch when it comes to power-grabs, and introduced Senate Bill 674, which will force all school board elections in Surry County -- just Surry -- to become partisan in nature. Ds versus Rs. Meanwhile, for independent candidates ... too bad, so sad.

The great majority of school boards in the state are elected via non-partisan ballots, including the one in Watauga. (Surry County has three separate school boards, all of which have been heretofore elected on a non-partisan ballot.)

Ballard thinks -- if she's thought about it at all and isn't just Berger's puppet -- that school boards need a transfusion of the same bile and vitriol that is currently stripping the political paint off the two-party system. She either thinks that partisan labels and partisan marching orders and partisan doctrine imposed from above will be good for the governance of public school boards in Surry County -- but nowhere else in particular -- she either believes that, or she's Berger's dumb tool.

And why just Surry County? If it's such a good thing to do and not just a naked, clumsy, embarrassingly obvious power-grab imposed on the citizens of that one northern-tier North Carolina county? Why?

The three separate school boards in Surry -- representing Elkin City Schools, Mount Airy City Schools, and Surry County Schools -- held a first-time-ever joint meeting in April, together signing a resolution to “oppose any legislation changing the manner of election of any one or more of these boards of education from nonpartisan to partisan.” The Elkin city commission passed a similar resolution.

Deanna Ballard wants to impose not just the state on Surry County, but the machinery of partisan witch-hunting. Just what public education needs!