Saturday's Internet Edition, May 17, 2008.
Elections Board Rules That 5 Students Eligible To Vote
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Kevin Boehm, John Daniel Gilbert, Justin Lee and Maggie Aggrero will be able to vote Tuesday, the board agreed Monday.
A teacher, Angie Byrd, told the board she had handed an envelope with the student registrations to a woman at the board of elections office the afternoon of March 29, well before the deadline for new registrations.
What happened from there is a mystery.
The woman who took the registrations from Byrd does not work for the board of elections.
Board of elections chair Hank Van Hoy said he hopes to identify and possibly prosecute whoever took the envelope.
“It’s bizarre that someone took them,” he said. He told Byrd it was inconceivable she would make up such a story.
Byrd and her husband are supporters of the bond referendum, and work in their spare time for that cause, she said.
She made voter registration available to eligible high school students, and the four students registered in her class.
She, too, is puzzled by what happened on March 29.
The problem arose when Boehm tried to take advantage of early voting, and was told he was not registered. He talked to another in his class who thought they had registered. They weren’t on the registration list, either.
Byrd said she entered the back of Mocksville Town Hall where the elections office is located and got in line. After learning she was in the line for the state license plate agency, she walked into the board of elections office.
There was no one at either desk facing the door, and she spoke to a woman to her left.
“The lady said, ‘I’ll take them and process them today.’ I assumed she worked there and assumed they were all registered ... subscribe to the Davie County Enterprise Record, P.O. Box 99, Mocksville, N.C. 27028.