Felony charges of illegal voting dismissed for five NC residents
Five people facing prison time for voting in the 2016 presidential election while on probation had their felony charges dismissed Monday. The Alamance County district attorney charged 12 people with voting while serving active felony sentences.
That charge was dismissed as part of plea deals for Whitney Brown, 32, and Anthony Haith, 40, as well as Neko Rogers, 36, Keith Sellars, 44, and Willie Vinson, Jr., 29. They pleaded to misdemeanor obstruction of justice under the Alford doctrine and were sentenced to a year of unsupervised probation and 24 hours of community service. (An Alford plea accepts a guilty verdict without admitting guilt.) State law bars people who are on probation for felonies from voting.
An audit last year of votes cast in 2016 found 441 suspected felon voters. The state elections office began referring cases to local district attorneys. Alamance County was one of a handful of counties where prosecutors brought charges. Nine of the 12 people charged in Alamance are African-American.
