A Granville County GOP Board of Elections Member Bullied Into Toeing the Party Line, Texts Reveal.
Reporting from the Raleigh News & Observer shows that a Granville County Board of Elections member was ready to give in to public pressure but appeared to be bullied into carrying out a partisan plan to move two popular Granville County early voting sites out of diverse population centers in the county.
Text messages obtained through an open records request by the News & Observer via open records request show that former Granville County GOP chair Michael Magnanti was texting Republican board members Debby Butler and Douglas O. Smith from the audience during the meeting, as County Beacon previously reported.
Butler said: “I can’t do this … I want to give in.” Magnanti responded, “No. They are wrong. This is grandstanding debby (sic)... just vote no.”
Magnanti was telling them what to say and urging them to hold the line on a plan preferred by the Auditor’s Office, which took over elections administration for the first time after the 2024 election. The board’s Democratic members and a large majority of the 100 people in attendance had argued that the changes would harm Black and lower-income voters who rely on accessible early voting sites to cast their ballots. Butler turned over her text messages as required by law, but Smith said he had deleted them after the meeting and that they could not be recovered, which appears to be a violation of state open records law. Butler had deleted her texts, she told the N&O, and recovered them from her cell phone provider, whereas Smith said he couldn’t recover his texts.
Earlier reporting from County Beacon showed that Magnanti was texting the board members during the meeting. These texts add context, showing that Butler was ready to concede to public pressure but Magnanti bullied Butler into toeing the party line.
