Voter says someone tried to impersonate her; election officials say she isn’t the only one

BRUNSWICK COUNTY, N.C. (WECT/Gray News) - What started as a routine day in August for Shelley Gentner turned into one that was shocking when she checked her mail and read a letter.

The letter was from the Brunswick County Board of Elections, which was asking her to verify her information. It was then she knew something was wrong.

“What was attached to [the letter] was a voter registration application form,” Gentner said.

The form Gentner described was a copy, one someone had sent to the Brunswick County Board of Elections Office impersonating her.

“It was my birthday, which was not correct. It had the last four digits of my social, which was not correct,” she said.

The form did, however, have her correct address and phone number.

When she saw her forged signature, she said she knew something was up.

“I thought, OK, somebody has signed my name. It’s not my signature. It’s not me,” Gentner said.

She then called the county elections office to tell them the person who sent the form was not her.

Director of Brunswick County Board of Elections Sara LaVere said Gentner was not the only person who made the report.

“We’ve had 18 voters reach out and say they did not complete that form,” LaVere said.

Gentner has been a registered unaffiliated voter in the county since 2020.

The Brunswick County elections team immediately flagged the form when they realized the information listed did not match Gentner’s record.

“We have been documenting thoroughly anytime we hear of something like this. Anything the voters report to us we send to the state board of elections,” LaVere said.

LaVere said if voters think something might be wrong, they should call the county board of elections.

“Someone might get [a letter] and say, ‘I didn’t fill that out,’ and just throw it away, and then we would have no way of knowing something needed to be sent up to the State Board of Elections for investigation,” LaVere said.

Gentner is saying the same.

“Don’t ignore it. Don’t throw the letter away. Just take care of it,” she said.

WECT reached out to the North Carolina State Board of Elections for an update on the investigation but has not yet heard back.

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