News

Young spent campaign money on poll workers

Young spent $11,555, including $6,255 to pay family members and other supporters.

By Bill Moss, Published: July 30, 2014

Candidates always strive to reach "likely" voters during a campaign. Larry Young figured the best place to find the likeliest of all was at the voting precincts.

"I thought giving them a personal handout and asking people to vote for you was the way to go because they're coming there to vote," he said. "That's the premise I went on, more or less asking people to vote."
Young lost to challenger Bill Lapsley, who outspent the three-term incumbent by a 3-to-1 margin, $35,251 to $11,555.
Young spent $6,255 — more than half his total treasury — to pay family members and other supporters to assemble handouts, work at the polls and put up campaign signs.
"I sat at the polls and talked to people that came through and handed out mints and asked them to vote for Larry Young," one of the campaign workers, Pat McCall, said in an interview. Young paid her $400 for "four or five days" at the polls in early voting and on Election Day.
"I was just helping out," said Steve Jenkins, who also helped. "I was putting out signs. I handed out the things (at the polls) to help get votes. I also put the signs up. I also made the signs, stuff like that."
Asked how he was connected to Young, Jenkins said, "I'm fixing to be his son-in-law."
Jenkins is engaged to Young's daughter Wendy Parker, who also worked on the campaign. Young paid Parker $1,000 and Jenkins $1,400 on May 8, two days after Henderson County primary election voters denied him a fourth term on the Board of Commissioners. Young, who served as his own campaign treasurer, also wrote a check to his wife, Bettye, for $1,200. In all, Young paid family members $3,600. That's legal, the county's top election official said.
"You can spend it on about anything you want to spend it on," Henderson County Elections Director Beverly Cunningham said. "He paid people to work at the polls and you can do that. He made those cards with the candy on it, and that's legitimate. It would be no different than if (Gov.) McCrory hired a campaign manager. It's not seen all the time in a smaller election. The same rules govern the same people is what I'm trying to say."
Although it is common for state and national campaigns to pay poll observers and other grassroots workers, it's less prevalent in local elections, where candidates generally count on volunteers.
In races for the Board of Commissioners, sheriff, register of deeds and the state House, only one other candidate reported paying anything for poll workers or campaign supporters who put up signs. State Rep. Chuck McGrady reported that he paid Sandy Jackson $50 for "Election Day poll checking."
Young paid family members and other supporters because "they worked," he said. "My wife did a lot of work here at home, putting out those handouts. My daughter worked doing the same thing. I felt like they ought to be paid."
Family members worked the polls, "plus they worked most every day putting together handouts," he said. "I worked a lot." Jenkins, his daughter's fiancé, "put up campaign signs and then took them down. He worked at the polls. I don't know what I would have done without him. He did a lot of physical labor I couldn't do."