Complaint accuses local NC elections board member of finance crime
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- State Board reviews complaint over $25,000 CC GOP contribution tied to Eldridge
- Complainant cites affidavits, meeting minutes, financial reports and recorded interviews.
- Second complaint seeks removal of CCBOE chair over alleged misconduct
A complaint to the state accuses a Cumberland County elections board member of violating campaign finance law through a contribution to the county’s GOP years before she was on the board.
The complaint alleges that Brenda “Bree” Eldridge, a member of the Cumberland County Board of Elections and former chair of the Cumberland County Republican Party, used money from anonymous donors to make a $25,000 contribution to the county GOP.
The contribution, according to the complaint, covered a speaking fee at a local meeting in 2022 for Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn — a former national security adviser to President Donald Trump who pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI and was pardoned by Trump in 2020.
Longtime North Carolina elections watchdog Bob Hall submitted the complaint on Tuesday to the state Board of Elections.
The complaint alleges a straw donor scheme in which someone makes a political contribution in their name using anonymous donor funding. Hall cites affidavits signed by several Cumberland County GOP members as evidence, as well as meeting minutes and financial reports.
In North Carolina, making a contribution more than $10,000 with someone else’s money is a felony, Hall said in the complaint, citing state law.
A second complaint filed by Hall calls for the removal of the Cumberland County Board of Elections chair, Linda Devore, alleging abuse of power and failing to report the potential crime.
A voicemail left at a phone number associated with Eldridge on Tuesday was not returned.
Republicans deny accusations
Devore told The News & Observer that the allegations against her and Eldridge are false.
“In 2022, Bree Eldridge made a $25,000 political contribution from her own funds. It was properly reported,” Devore said. “She preferred that it stay under the radar, except for the report filed with the state, so that locals did not look to her as a deep pocket donor.”
In Hall’s complaint, he said Eldridge told him the whole contribution was from her personal funds.
Jason Tyson, the director of external affairs for the N.C. State Board of Elections, wrote in a statement on behalf of the board that it does not comment directly on campaign finance complaints.
The N.C. GOP said the “sham” complaints were a political attack “designed to intimidate Republican elections and undermine confidence in North Carolina elections.”
The state Republican Party chair, Jason Simmons, called Hall’s complaints a “partisan smear campaign” against party members.
“There is not a single credible allegation of legal or procedural wrongdoing,” he said in a statement. “Just innuendo, spin, and political resentment which have absolutely no merit.”
Hall said he holds regard and respect for elections board members who are “very conscientious about working as a team and putting aside their partisan differences to conduct a fair election process.”
He said his complaints raise “serious questions” about Eldridge and Devore.
Eldridge allegations
In March 2022, Eldridge signed a personal check for $25,000 payable to the Cumberland County Republican Party, according to the complaint. It was deposited in the general fund for the county GOP.
The complaint says Richard Button, then-treasurer for the Cumberland County GOP, told Hall in a recorded interview that Eldridge raised the contribution “from other donors.”
Hall said in the complaint that he met with Eldridge to discuss the contribution and that she showed him deposits to her personal bank account, which included a deposit of $23,700 from her brokerage account in February 2022.
Eldridge told Hall that she tried to raise contributions for the Flynn event from members of the military, but found it difficult when potential contributors learned their names would appear publicly in reports, according to the complaint.
Devore noted that Eldridge allowed Hall “to go with her to the bank and see anything he wanted to see in her accounts.”
“She has nothing to hide,” Devore said.
Hall’s complaint notes that Eldridge served as chair of the CCGOP from March 2021 to March 2023.
The NC GOP said Hall’s allegations against Eldridge hinge on “a four-year-old campaign contribution that was lawful, properly reported, and entirely unrelated to her current role.”
Eldridge was sworn in as a member of the Cumberland County Board of Elections in 2025.
Devore allegations
The second complaint alleges that Devore knew of the contribution and failed to report a potential violation of state law.
The complaint included an affidavit signed by Juanita Gonzalez, a CCGOP leader who served on the county party’s audit committee in 2025 alongside Devore, who chaired the committee that year.
Devore also initially chaired the 2023 audit committee that reviewed the party’s 2022 finances.
Devore told the 2025 committee members that she couldn’t stay on the 2023 committee “because of the $25,000,” Gonzalez wrote in the affidavit.
“She (Devore) didn’t want to sign off on an audit that she knew was not correct,” Gonzalez wrote.
Devore said that during the auditing in 2023, she was preoccupied with her mother’s health and was trying to get to Indiana, so she sent the committee an email saying that she needed to step away and for the committee to finish up the audit.
Devore said Eldridge contacted her after the meeting and said the $25,000 came from Eldridge’s personal funds. Eldridge preferred that people in the community “not know that I have deep pockets like that,” Devore said.
“She (Eldridge) is a trained treasurer. She’s a CPA,” Devore said. “I knew she was telling me the truth, and that was it.”
Gonzalez also noted in the affidavit that Devore said “making donations by using other people’s money was what sent Dinesh D’Souza to prison.”
D’Souza, a right-wing political commentator, in 2014 pleaded guilty in federal court to making illegal campaign contributions in the names of other people.
Devore said her intention by saying that was to “emphatically make them understand you can’t do things like that.”
“I’m a rule follower. I’ve been chided my entire life about this,” she said. “The rules are the rules and the law is the law, and that’s what you have to follow.”
Hall’s complaint also alleges that Devore is not fit to be chair of the CCBOE because of bullying complaints. He said Devore made a comment about Irene Grimes, a Cumberland County BOE member who was not born in the United States, saying that Grimes had “not culturally assimilated.”
Grimes, who immigrated to the United States when she was around 23 years old, told The N&O that the comment was not made directly to her, but that Devore said it in a room full of people. Some people approached Grimes after the comment was made to say it was not appropriate, she said.
Grimes wrote in an affidavit later given to Hall that she holds no ill will against Devore.
“Holding ill will, I think, would be more reflection on me than anybody else, and the comment speaks more for the person that made it than for me,” Grimes said.
Grimes’ father is Greek and her mother is Austrian. Grimes said she spent half of her life in either country before moving to the U.S.
Grimes added that Devore shouldn’t be removed as chair because of that comment, but said Devore should be removed if the other allegations are true.
Devore said her comment was a joke. She said Grimes frequently jokes at meetings that Grimes doesn’t understand how scoring for football and basketball work, which is when Devore made a joke about Grimes’ “lack of cultural assimilation.”
“She (Grimes) was making a joke, and I was making a joke, and that’s what happened at our board table,” Devore said.
In his complaint, Hall makes a few other allegations against Devore, including that she used an “an authoritarian and intimidating type of leadership” through poll worker and election judge appointments and allegedly violated campaigning procedures at a polling site during early voting.
Grimes said elections staff should “not be treated the way they’re being treated” by Devore, and said Devore’s behavior at meetings “would not be my leadership style.”
Devore rebutted those claims as well.
She said the responsibility that she and her fellow board members hold is to run transparent elections that build community trust.
“You have to be able to know the law, understand the law, to follow the law, and that’s what we look to do in every instance,” Devore said. “And I think we do a good job of that.”
Tyson said there is no set timeline for investigations. He said it can vary based on evidence and interviews, and could last days, weeks or even up to a year.
This story was originally published April 2, 2026 at 3:31 PM.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misidentified who was said to have made a comment about Irene Grimes.
