AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File
- A North Carolina GOP leader tried to intimidate an elections chief to give him access to voting equipment.
- Reuters reported that the official was William Keith Senter, chairman of the Surry County GOP.
- Senter reportedly threatened the position of Surry County Elections Director Michella Huff.
A local GOP leader in North Carolina attempted to intimidate a county elections chief unless she aided in giving him unauthorized access to official voting equipment, according to Reuters.
William Keith Senter, chairman of the Surry County Republican Party, told the elections chief she would be terminated from her position or suffer a pay cut if she failed to give him access. Senter intended to use the equipment to compile evidence to back up unfounded assertions that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, Reuters reported.
Since Trump’s loss to now-President Joe Biden, Trump and many of his most loyal supporters have pushed for more restrictive voting laws and “forensic” audits to examine the results in key swing states, including Arizona and Wisconsin. Trump narrowly won North Carolina over Biden by 1%, or roughly 73,000 votes out of 5.5 million ballots cast.
Senter told Surry County Elections Director Michella Huff that she would lose her job if she didn’t acquiesce to his request to gain access to sensitive voting equipment, per the North Carolina State Board of Elections in a series of responses to Reuters.
The board told Reuters that Senter was “aggressive, threatening, and hostile” during two encounters with Huff, according to witnesses with knowledge of the meeting.
Huff turned down Senter’s requests and was unsettled by the situation.
“It’s a shame, that it is being normalized,” she told Reuters. “I didn’t expect to get it here in our county. We are just trying to do our job by the law.”
The push by Senter was a potential violation of North Carolina law, per Reuters.
Senter declined to respond to questions from Reuters regarding the report.
Mark Payne, an attorney brought on by the Surry County Board of Elections, wrote last week that it was illegal to give unauthorized individuals admittance in accessing voting equipment. Also, per a North Carolina statute, the intimidation of an election officer can result in an individual confronting potential felony charges.
According to the board, Senter and Douglas Frank — who also espouses election conspiracy theories — both saw Huff on March 28, alleging that “there was a ‘chip’ in the voting machines that pinged a cellular phone tower on Nov. 3, 2020, and somehow influenced election results.”
The board blasted the claim as “fabricated disinformation,” per the report.
During an event where Huff was not present, Senter claimed that he could have her salary reduced if she did not give in to his demands. Huff told Reuters about the threat, which was relayed to her through someone in attendance who heard Senter’s comments.
It is unclear why Senter felt as though he could have impacted Huff’s standing as elections chief, as the GOP-controlled Surry County Board of Commissioners — whom he claimed backed his plot to penalize her — doesn’t have jurisdiction over her position, which rests with the state elections board.
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