Two former candidates have filed federal lawsuits alleging several Lincoln County officials, including two who have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from an election fraud scheme, were involved in a conspiracy to fix the May 2010 primary election.
The first suit was brought by a Democratic candidate for Lincoln County clerk, Charles Brumfield, against Lincoln County commissioners Charles McCann and Thomas Ramey Jr., Lincoln County Commission secretary Judy Johnson, former Lincoln County Clerk Donald Whitten, former Lincoln County Sheriff Jerry Bowman, Rocky Adkins, the Lincoln County Commission and the West Virginia Counties Group Self Insurance Risk Pool.
That same day, Maria "Phoebe" Harless, a Democratic candidate for county commission, filed a federal suit against the same people. However, Harless' suit also included Lincoln County Commissioner Charles Vance.
Bowman, 57, who had filed to fun for Lincoln County circuit clerk, was formally charged with conspiracy in illegal absentee voting.
Federal prosecutors say Bowman falsified more than 100 absentee ballot applications for voters who legally could not vote absentee.
Whitten, 62, had filed for re-election as the county clerk and was charged with making false statements to a federal investigator about his role in the conspiracy.
According to the information, Bowman, Whitten and another "known individual" visited voters' homes and sat with them while they voted.
Bowman and Whitten pleaded guilty March 7 to charges stemming from a 2010 primary election fraud scheme.
A person familiar with the investigation said Rocky Adkins had been contacted by federal investigators.
However, when asked about the status of the investigation and other potential prosecutions, officials with the U.S. Attorney's Office said they could not comment beyond saying the investigation is ongoing.
In his suit, Brumfield said he won the nomination to Lincoln County clerk based on votes cast in person at the polls and through in-person early voting.
However, the suit continued, after the Lincoln County Commission counted absentee ballots, Bowman was declared the winner.
Similarly, Harless asserts she won her election for county commissioner based on in-person early voting and in-person votes at the polls. However, after absentee ballots were counted, Ramey was declared the winner.
"The manner in which absentee ballots were collected and voted in the May 11, 2010, Lincoln County Democratic primary election race … was illegal and unlawful and the result of a conspiracy between … defendant office holders in the Lincoln County Courthouse, affiliated with the political action committee named ‘Lincoln County Democratic Committee,'" the suit states, noting the committee was separate from the Lincoln County Democratic Executive Committee, which is organized under the Democratic Party of West Virginia.
In addition to Bowman and Whitten, Brumfield and Harless assert Ramey and Adkins visited homes of select Lincoln County residents to have those residents sign applications for absentee ballots, even though the reasons for absentee voting were false.
Both Brumfield and Harless say none of the applications disclosed that assistance was provided to the voter. Bowman, Brumfield's suit states, personally completed as many as 84 applications for absentee ballots.
"In many cases, Bowman, Whitten, Ramey and Adkins approached multiple members of large families and solicited from them applications for absentee ballots by mail based upon false or incomplete applications that were transmitted in various methods to the Lincoln County Courthouse," both suits state.
Bowman, Whitten, Ramey and Adkins, the suits further assert, also had a practice of calling or visiting voters they solicited for absentee ballots from to see if ballots had been received.
"Bowman, Whitten, Ramey and Adkins would then would go to the homes of these voters and even be present while the voter actually marked their ballot," the suits read.
According to Brumfield's suit, Lincoln County had more applications for absentee ballots than did the six counties bordering Lincoln County combined.
Brumfield also asserts every candidate pictured by the Lincoln County Democratic Committee in newspaper advertisements received absentee votes by mail in amounts "so disproportionate to those not slated by the LCDC as to demonstrate a statistical impossibility of such results without the injection of some improper bias into the election process."
Harless also asserts the absentee ballot process in the May primary was an illegal result of a conspiracy among defendants, except for Vance.
Vance, Harless' suit states, was elected as a county commissioner as a resident of Magisterial District 5 in 2000. Yet between 2000 and 2006, Harless says, Vance moved to Magisterial District 3, where another sitting county commissioner lived.
Vance sought re-election to the county commission in 2006 and the suit further alleges he falsely said he still resided in District 5.
Harless, who also resided in Magisterial District 3, said she relied on the false certificate of candidacy when she decided to run for office.
The suit states when Ramey and Vance disclosed that Vance resided in District 3, Harless was disqualified from further prosecuting her election and was deprived candidacy as a Democrat nominee, "but only after she had expended tens of thousands of dollars in an effort to overturn the fundamentally unfair results of the 2011 primary election."
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