Bartlett on Out-of-Precinct Voting
Bartlett explains how House Bill 589 prevented voting outside of one’s precinct of residence. Because of this, voters of lesser socio-economic status who have less access to affordable transportation, have a greater difficulty voting. African-American and Hispanic voters tend to be those most affected—leading to a noticeable change in enfranchisement vs. disenfranchisement.
An example: one of the things H.B. 589 did was say that if you live in a precinct you must vote in that precinct unless it’s early voting site before the election. That is current law. There are problems with transportation for some of the more poor people, and usually poor is related to an Afro-American, Hispanic, or other race. And now if you vote a vote outside the precinct it does not count at all whereas before you had a partially counted ballot so every office that you were eligible to vote for counted and everywhere you weren’t did not count, and I think that is one of the biggest things that has caused a change in enfranchisement vs. disenfranchisement.
Bartlett on Voter Fraud
Bartlett insists that voter fraud is much less of an issue than proponents of H.B. 589 suggest. While some say there are numerous cases of double voting, Bartlett suggests these cases are overly exaggerated. Instead, most cases of voter fraud—like 112-year-old voters—were the result of changes in data collection. Bartlett celebrates the power of a vote and criticizes those that overplay simple accidents of double voting.
If you will recall, right before the passage of 589, there was a testimony that there might be as many as 36,000 double voters. We knew – I knew it was not that. And everybody was saying, this is the fraud we’re talking about, this is the fraud, and I was even asked by the editorial board of the News and Observer what did I think, and I says, if you look at all of the absentee ballots, you might come up with two dozen, and it ended up being six referrals.
These are the facts: in 1993 there was a person convicted of a felony and then escaped from prison. And then at that same house, this person – same name, same house – voted. And once the Department of Corrections were able to do their research, they found out that that person who was living there – well, first, the convicted felon was five-foot-three. The person with the same name and birth date was five-foot-eight and a reporter for the News and Observer. Seriously. Those things happen.
And then there was one military guy who just got back from serving in Afghanistan, and he kept on calling to make sure the board of elections had his mail-in absentee ballot, and we had documentation that on the deadline for absentee, he thought that his thing did not come in, but it came in like that Monday before the election which, at that time it had to be in before election day; now you’ve got three days after the election. But he did not know that, so he went and voted. He wanted to make sure that he participated, and it ended up where he was double voting, and of course, knowing that he was trying to do the right thing, we did not refer that one.
Bartlett on Supporters of H.B. 589
Here, Bartlett tries to explain the rationale of the supporters of H.B. 589—they are simply implementing what they think is the right way of doing things.
Do you think that the supporters of House Bill 589 believe fundamentally that the bill affects some people’s ability to vote more than others?
I would say that I believe that the supporters think that they are doing the right thing.
Is it a deliberate attempt to mislead people?
I don’t think that they believe it’s deliberately misleading. I think that they believe the Kool-Aid that they drink. I think that, like I said earlier, that they have an opinion, and then they get enough information where they think that it’s fact, and they just advocate for their position. And I can assure you that behind what I said, there’s always, how can we control to stay in power?
Bartlett on the Value of a Vote
For Bartlett, one vote can make all the difference in an election. While so many have lost interest and faith in the election process, mainly because of their inability to make a difference in the outcome, Bartlett emphasizes the importance of eligible voters getting to the polls.
Well first of all, one vote does make a difference. There were several elections during my tenure that were one vote, or it was a tie.
[In one year,] between ties and one or two vote winners, there was about 36 of them. So it does count. One vote does count. And I truly believe that every eligible voter should.
