Early voting will be held April 28 through May 14, 2022. Find your early voting location here.
Macon County has removed Mark Meadows, a former NC congressman and former chief of staff to President Donald Trump, from its list of registered voters after documents showed that he lived in Virginia and voted in the 2021 election there.
According to public records, Meadows was registered to vote in both Virginia and North Carolina. In N.C., he listed a mobile home in Scaly Mountain that he did not own as his legal residence weeks before casting a ballot in the 2020 presidential election. Scaly Mountain is just north of the Georgia-North Carolina border and about 90 miles west of Asheville.
Questions emerged about Meadows’ voter registration in March after a report in The New Yorker brought up allegations that in 2020, he registered a Macon County address, but had never lived there. WRAL-TV later reported that state authorities were investigating Meadows' voter registration.
Macon County Board of Elections Director Melanie Thibault told BPR that she was unaware that Meadows was on the county’s voter rolls.
Macon County District Attorney Ashley Welch recused herself from the matter, noting that Meadows had contributed to her campaign for DA and appeared in political ads endorsing her. Welch sent the case to North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein. Stein’s office in turn asked the State Bureau of Investigation to look into Meadow’s voter registration in the Western North Carolina county.
In announcing his removal, the Macon County Board of Elections told BPR that it has received no formal challenge and is referring all questions about the matter to the SBI.
Thibault encourages folks who have questions about the upcoming election to get involved and to register to vote ASAP. The deadline for voter registration is April 22nd.
“I would encourage them to get involved with the election process in some way. Work at the polls on Election Day, work one stop early voting, attend board meetings (schedule on our website), contact their party chairs,” said Thibault in an email.
