This story originally published in NC Newsline.
Gerry Cohen, a member of the Wake County Board of Elections, said he cried in November 2024 when he heard family members testify about people who cast ballots before the general election but died before Election Day.
Cohen, who spent decades as a top staffer in the state legislature, said Wednesday he cried again when it looked like the state Board of Elections might remove him and Greg Flynn from the Wake Board of Elections for their decision to count those dead voters’ ballots.
The state board did find that Cohen and Flynn violated their duties by a 3-2 party-line vote. But board Chairman Francis De Luca, a Republican, voted with the board’s Democrats to spare them from removal from the Wake board. Instead, the state board voted to censure them.
Steve Holland of Weaverville filed a complaint challenging their count of dead voters’ ballots, which he said violated a state board policy.
They “knowingly departed from state directives,” Holland said. As a result, the ballots of three dead voters from Wake were counted in that election while the ballots of 42 other dead voters were not.
The state board’s directives are written and sent to county boards to make sure that “similarly situated voters” are treated the same way, not just within a county but across the state.
Flynn and Cohen, both Democrats, “knew what the directives required, understood that those directives governed county boards, and nevertheless voted contrary to them,” Holland said. Their conduct warranted removal, he said.
In January 2025, the board, then led by a Democratic majority, opted not to hold a hearing on Holland’s complaint. Holland appealed to the state Office of Administrative Hearings. A judge there ruled that the board was required to hold a hearing on Holland’s complaint.
During Wednesday’s hearing, the board, now under Republican leadership, heard testimony on the substance of the state board memo on how to treat ballots when voters have died, whether the memo was guidance or a directive, and if the state constitution required counting those votes.
Both Flynn and Cohen quoted a section of the state constitution that says “Every person offering to vote shall be at the time legally registered as a voter” in their argument that the ballots of deceased voters should be counted if they were properly registered.
Cohen said he does not believe that any existing state law requires deceased voters’ ballots to be discarded. Cohen’s work for the General Assembly included drafting election laws.
Cohen said the fact that lawmakers filed a bill this year to codify how the state handles early votes by people who die before an election illustrates that state law doesn’t currently address the issue.
Flynn said the purpose of his vote was to raise an issue that the state board or the legislature needed to address.
“I don’t think we should be penalized for exercising our judgement,” Flynn said.
De Luca asked Flynn and Cohen if they would take the same action again, and each said they would not.
Cohen said he was caught up in the emotional stories from deceased voters’ relatives, and said he had made a mistake in voting to count their ballots.
“If you were to choose to reprimand me, I would accept that,” Cohen said in his opening statement. “If you were to want to censure me, I would stand and accept the censure as is required. But please do not remove me over this issue.”
Board Secretary Stacy “Four” Eggers IV said that it’s been the law for at least the last 25 years that a voter has to be alive on election day for their vote to count. He voted to remove Cohen and Flynn from the Wake board. He was joined in that vote by fellow Republican board member Angela Hawkins, who served on the Wake County board with Cohen and Flynn during the 2024 election.
De Luca said after the meeting that he did not think Flynn and Cohen acted with malice.
The numbered memos sent to county boards are confusing and should be replaced with rules, he said.
De Luca said Flynn and Cohen’s testimony that they would not take the same action again influenced his vote.
Cohen “has a long history of doing stuff in the state—not all I agree with,” De Luca said. “I thought he deserved the benefit of the doubt.”
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