Complaint against county elections board chair dismissed by NC officials
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- The State Board of Elections dismissed a complaint against Cumberland County Board chair
- The State Board voted 3-2, with three Republican members voting to dismiss.
- Bob Hall alleged Devore knew Eldridge’s contribution to the county party was improper.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections has dismissed a complaint against a Cumberland County election official alleged to have failed to report a campaign finance violation.
Linda Devore, the Cumberland County Board of Elections chair, was also accused of abusing her power and using authoritarian leadership practices. She was sworn into the position in 2025 after serving as a board member since 2019, and is also a former Cumberland County Republican Party official.
The complaint stemmed from a separate campaign finance complaint filed against Brenda “Bree” Eldridge, a member of the county’s elections board and former chair of the Cumberland County GOP.
Eldridge is alleged to have used money from anonymous donors to make a $25,000 contribution to the county party to pay a speaking fee at a local meeting in 2022 for Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a move that the complaint alleges is a straw donor scheme.
Flynn is 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.
Devore previously told The News & Observer that the allegations against her and Eldridge were false.
She said in a statement that State Auditor Dave Boliek charged her with “raising standards and improving delivery of election services in Cumberland County, while making it easy to vote and hard to cheat” when he appointed her as chair.
“Nothing is more important than protecting the sacred rights of voters, and the process by which we elect political leadership in this nation, this state, and in Cumberland County, by embracing high and exacting standards, with strong accountability,” Devore said.
The State Board of Elections voted 3-2 along party lines. Republican members Francis De Luca, Stacy “Four” Eggers and Angela Hawkins voted to dismiss the complaint, while Democratic members Siobhan O’Duffy Millen and Jeff Carmon voted to investigate further.
Eggers on Thursday at the SBE meeting said the complaint was a “litany of personal grievances in many ways,” and that it did not rise to the level of probable cause, which is the threshold for the board to take action.
The complaints were filed by longtime North Carolina elections watchdog Bob Hall.
In a statement sent to the N&O on Friday, Hall said it was disappointing that the “Republican board members would use a contrived excuse to dismiss the complaint by saying that many of the allegations happened before Devore” was a member of the Cumberland County elections board.
“Three people in sworn affidavits say Devore told them in two different conversations that she knew Eldridge’s $25,000 contribution in 2022 involved a criminal violation,” he said. “Devore should have immediately reported that information to the State Board, certainly by early 2023 when she was a county election official and also a member of the county party’s audit committee.”
Devore allegations
The complaint alleges that Devore knew of Eldridge’s contribution and failed to report a potential violation of state law.
In Hall’s complaint, he said Eldridge told him the whole contribution was from her personal funds.
Hall’s complaint includes affidavits signed by county GOP officials that said Devore made a reference to Dinesh D’Souza when discussing Eldridge’s contribution.
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 previously told The N&O that her intention was to “emphatically make them understand you can’t do things like that.”
Hall’s complaint also alleges that Devore is not fit to be chair of the county elections board because of bullying complaints. He said 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.
Devore rebutted those claims as well.
Hall on Friday said if the State Board of Elections’ investigation into Eldridge’s contribution “produces some prosecution recommendation,” it could open up more questions into Devore’s knowledge of the contribution.
