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Coffman denies misconduct in response to state elections board
Meghann Evans/Winston-Salem Journal | Posted: Monday, December 30, 2013 9:41 pm
Forsyth County Elections Director Rob Coffman on Monday filed a response to a petition seeking his ouster, denying any misconduct and saying that he doesn’t deserve to be fired.
Forsyth Board of Elections Chairman Ken Raymond and Secretary Stuart Russell decided on Dec. 10 to file a petition with the N.C. State Board of Elections to terminate Coffman. The vote was not unanimous; board member Fleming El-Amin was in favor of suspending Coffman for five days.
Coffman emailed his response to state elections Director Kim Strach on Monday afternoon. Local board members could not be immediately reached for comment.
“There has been no recklessness or a design to mislead,” Coffman wrote. “I am a person of integrity that always strives for the best of me and the staff of the (county board of elections).”
“The voters of Forsyth County can have complete confidence that the election administration is done with a focus on accuracy, transparency and accountability,” Coffman continued.
Coffman did not respond to questions about his response.
Strach has 20 days to deliver a decision. Her decision will be final unless deferred by the state elections board within 20 days.
The petition from Raymond and Russell included 91 bullet points that focused primarily on Coffman’s handling of Winston-Salem State University voter mailings, problems with Tobaccoville Village Council recounts, alleged disparaging remarks Coffman made to Raymond, and incorrect information he provided to Russell.
Coffman responded to each of the points, confirming some details but denying many claims.
“I don’t see the cumulative effect that warrants termination. It seems that there may be personality conflicts and the rehash of issues from the past that have been resolved,” Coffman wrote.
Coffman admitted in his response that there were administrative errors with a recent Tobaccoville Village Council race recount, but said he has created a checklist to prevent such problems in the future.
The county had to call for a second Tobaccoville recount last month after Forsyth County Republican Party Chairman Scott Cumbie pointed out that ballot totals did not match up. The second recount changed the winner.
Coffman denies hearing Cumbie say he saw a ballot being counted twice and denies that he purposely misled Russell when giving him recount totals later.
Coffman also has been criticized for his handling of voter mail from WSSU. In August, Raymond found several hundred undeliverable voter mailings at the WSSU post office.
Raymond and Coffman have since provided differing numbers of cards.
In his response, Coffman said he was not in the office when Raymond brought in the cards and that he could not confirm the number of cards Raymond discovered. He said Raymond should have requested staff count them in front of him.
The county board voted recently to send the WSSU cards to the state to after a recent Civitas Institute article questioned Coffman’s handling of the cards. Civitas Institute is a conservative research and policy group based in Raleigh.
Raymond claims that in a heated phone conversation Coffman attacked his character and said “Civitas is worse than the Tea Party.”
While Coffman said there was a heated phone conversation, he denies attacking Raymond’s character or performance.
Coffman admits that he said the Civitas Institute has “similar ideology as the Tea Party.”
“It was a statement of personal opinion given in a private setting that had no impact on the completion of the (public records) request from Civitas,” Coffman said.
The petition against Coffman also stated that Coffman’s disrespect of Raymond affects the operations of the local elections office and that Coffman publicly ridiculed Raymond’s investigation of the WSSU cards, which Coffman denied.
“Respect is a two way street. Without the chair having respect towards my experience and position he has impacted the operation of the office not I. There is no public ridicule of the chair by me,” Coffman said.
He said Raymond has created public ridicule in the media by comments he has made or policies he has endorsed, such as placing officers at early voting sites and requiring information from voter registration drive leaders. Those proposals were either tabled or modified.
With his response, Coffman attached a letter of support from former Forsyth County Board of Elections members Jerry Jordan and Frank Dickerson dated Dec. 17.
In the letter, Jordan, a Republican, and Dickerson, a Democrat, outlined their investigation of complaints against Coffman in 2011 and said that the board “unanimously concluded that they had found no credible evidence” against Coffman after interviewing employees and holding public meetings.
“We believe it would be a great loss to the Forsyth County Board of Elections if Mr. Coffman were dismissed,” Jordan and Dickerson wrote
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