Former GOP legislator charged with assaulting a poll worker at Wake early voting site
A former Republican state lawmaker was charged with assaulting an election worker at a Wake County early voting site on Friday morning.
Gary Pendleton was an official Republican poll observer at the Northern Regional Center on East Holding Avenue in Wake Forest, where he was charged with a misdemeanor assault. Pendleton, 73, served in the N.C. General Assembly from 2015 to 2017 and is a former Wake County commissioner and retired brigadier general.
Pendleton said he pushed a poll worker who blocked him from entering the polling site.
“He stepped in front of me, at about three feet,” he said in an interview. “We both had on masks, and I took both my hands and pushed him back a little bit. I didn’t push him hard. I just pushed him back a little bit to get out of my face because we do have COVID-19 going on.”
Pendleton had been a poll observer at Roberts Community Center in Raleigh on Thursday, and said he was allowed to enter the site early to observe poll workers. When he was denied early entry on Friday, he said he asked the poll worker in Wake Forest what was he was trying to hide.
“Of course that’s why we are there,” he said. “We are looking for fraudulent activity that might be occurring in polls around Wake County.”
Gary Sims, director of the Wake County Board of Elections, sent an email to the board about the incident.
“This morning at National Regional Center (early voting) location, a Republican observer assaulted one of our officials,” Sims wrote. “Police have cited him with assault but did not take him into custody. He has departed and warned not to return to voting locations as an observer.”
The observer was identified as Pendleton in the email. Sims did not identify the poll worker, who was not injured.
“I don’t care if it’s voting or anything,” Sims said in an interview later. “If you are upset you need to step back. Violence is never acceptable. These election officials are like family to me so I kinda feel like a member of my family was assaulted. It’s not acceptable.”
‘A very bad experience’
In a statement to The News & Observer, Wake County GOP Chairwoman Donna Williams said the local party’s goal is to “ensure a safe, transparent process for voters, so that way, everyone can have confidence in election results.”
“Our policy is to never interfere with a voter’s right to vote or obstruct the elections process,” she said. “Poll observers are there to observe and report problems to our attorneys who can take appropriate legal action. Gary Pendleton admitted that he did not handle the situation in accordance with our policy and will no longer be volunteering with us and apologizes for his actions.”
Observers are generally not allowed in to polling places early, Sims said, but some had been on the first day of voting.
“We communicated with them today that they shouldn’t be doing that,” Sims said. “The site he went to today they were following what they were supposed to be doing.”
Polls observers are appointed by local political parties and are allowed inside voting areas to observe, Sims said.
Pendleton said he was asked by the Wake County GOP to go to the Wake Forest early voting site because he was told they’d had “real problems” on the first day. He said he didn’t know what the problems were, but said he received an email from Williams about them Friday, after he’d been asked to leave.
The email was originally sent from a poll observer who was at the Wake Forest location on Thursday. She described a couple who was given voter forms in lawn chairs in front of the curbside voting area.
“When people saw the elderly couple voting in their lounge chairs they asked if the (sic) could sit down and vote in lounge chairs also because they were tired,” according to the email.
The poll observer also said she was accused of lurking over voters’ shoulders and taking photos, both of which she denied.
“Because the judge was being so mean, and asked me if my shift was over, I decided to just leave,” the woman said in the email. “From the moment I got there this morning she was unfriendly. I just told her that I was there as a poll observer for the Republican Party, and things with her went down hill from there. ... It was a very bad experience. All I wanted to do was volunteer and help, and I’m sorry that I ended up leaving early.”
Sims said he wasn’t aware of any issues at the polling site, but he was aware of the people who voted outside a vehicle in the curbside area. He said curbside voting is allowed in the vehicle or “in the immediate proximity of the voting place.”
“If that is their reason for assaulting somebody I don’t know,” Sims said. “If that is what they are listing as their quote, unquote problem, that we were helping an elderly couple, I don’t know how to respond to that.”
Early voting began Thursday at 20 locations throughout Wake County. More than 85,000 voters cast their ballots during the first day.
This story was originally published October 16, 2020 at 1:56 PM.
