- May 2, 2024
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Sheriff’s Office deputies were called to a polling site on Sunday, Oct. 30, after two men recorded and photographed poll workers transporting voting ballots at the Flagler County Supervisor of Elections Office on East Moody Boulevard.
"It became a security issue," Supervisor of Elections Kaiti Lenhart said. "We've never had something like this happen before."
Lenhart said that since the incident on Sunday, a Flagler County Sheriff's Office deputy has escorted staff members from each of the polling locations to the Elections Office at the end of polling hours. They will continue to do so through the rest of early voting and are working on a solution for Election Day.
The incident took place at 6:30 p.m., half an hour after early voting sites closed.
When Flagler County Sheriff's Office deputies responded to the call, they spoke with the two men, who said they were recording and following Elections Office staff to ensure ballot integrity, according to a computer-aided dispatch report.
Lenhart said one of the two men had been at the Palm Coast Community Center — an early voting location — and had pushed past the poll deputy because he wanted to witness the poll's closing procedures.
He seemed a little aggressive, but was allowed in to view the procedures — “as any person is entitled to do," Lenhart said. After the Elections Office staff closed the site, one staff member drove the ballots to the Elections Office, as they do at the end of every business day, when he noticed he was being followed, Lenhart said.
When the staff member parked, two other vehicles parked and two men exited their vehicles, already recording.
The men demanded the election workers’ names and job titles, Lenhart said.
Another staff member from the library voting site pulled up at that time. Lenhart said she was on the phone with that second staff member when the staff member told her that the men were approaching the staff member's vehicle with their phones out.
Lenhart, who was not on the premises at the time, said she hung up with her staff member and called the Sheriff's Office, and immediately returned to the office herself.
The staff members asked the men to stop recording, the CAD report said, but they refused, saying the staff were government employees and could be recorded. It is not illegal to photograph people in public places where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.
The men recorded and photographed the staff members and pointed their phones into the windows of staff members' personal vehicles, Lenhart said.
The staff members waited inside the Elections Office until deputies arrived.
Lenhart said that while the men’s actions were not a crime, the situation worried staff members, since the men's intentions were unknown. She said staff didn't know if the men were going to try to take the ballots or interfere with the chain of custody.
"It made my staff uncomfortable," Lenhart said.
The men told the responding deputies that they were recording the workers "to ensure ballots were brought from point A to B without any stops along the way."
They told deputies that they didn't have any concerns about the way the poll workers handled the ballots, the report said.
