Voter says someone tried to impersonate her; Election workers say she’s not the only one

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

The letter was from the Brunswick County Board of Elections asking them to verify their information. That’s when she knew something was wrong.

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

The form Gentner described was a copy that someone had sent to the Brunswick County elections office posing as her.

“It was my birthday, which was incorrect. It contained the last four digits of my social data, which was incorrect,” she said.

However, the form contained her correct address and telephone number.

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

“I thought, okay, someone signed my name. It’s not my signature. That’s not me,” Gentner said.

She then called the county election office and told them that the person who sent the form was not her.

Sara LaVere, director of the Brunswick County Board of Elections, said Gentner was not the only person who prepared the report.

“18 voters came forward and said they didn’t fill out that form,” LaVere said.

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

The Brunswick County elections team immediately flagged the form when it discovered the information listed did not match Gentner’s information.

“We have documented thoroughly every time we hear of something like this. “Anything voters report to us, we send to the state Board of Elections,” LaVere said.

LaVere said if voters believe something is wrong, they should call the county elections board.

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

Gentner says the same thing.

“Don’t ignore it. Don’t throw the letter away. Just deal with it,” she said.

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

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