RALEIGH, N.C. – A grand jury in Granville County on Tuesday returned felony and misdemeanor indictments against a former Granville County elections worker alleged to have unlawfully altered voter registrations. The alleged misconduct was discovered and corrected before the 2016 general election.
Joy Yvette Wilkerson, 41, of Henderson, faces four counts of unlawful voter registration, a Class I felony, and one count of unlawful altering of voter registrations, a Class 2 misdemeanor.
“The felony and misdemeanor counts in the indictments brought by the Granville County District Attorney’s Office reflect the seriousness of the charges against Ms. Wilkerson,” said Chief Investigator Joan Fleming of the N.C. State Board of Elections. “The State Board of Elections takes seriously any allegations of tampering with voter records, and will continue to actively pursue investigations of election officials alleged to have abused their positions of public trust.”
In late 2015, Wilkerson was screened and hired through a temporary staffing agency to work at the Granville County Board of Elections in preparation for the 2016 presidential election. In June 2016, Tonya Burnette, Granville County elections director, determined through a review of records that the temporary worker changed voter registration records without authorization. Burnette notified the State Board of Elections, which investigated the matter and sent a full report about the case to the district attorney’s office for Granville County for possible prosecution.
The Granville County Board of Elections and State Board of Elections office worked together to ensure that improper changes made by the indicted worker were corrected in the voter registration database before the November election.