GOP demands feds investigate Alison Grimes over abuse of power claims

Phillip M. Bailey | Courier Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption Alison Lundergan Grimes has support from the state board of elections Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes says she has support from Kentucky State Board of Elections following an accusation of abuse of authority

A top election official is accusing Alison Lundergan Grimes of abusing her office's authority.

The allegations are detailed in a nine-page letter sent to the State Board of Elections.

The accuser is a Democrat who says Grimes threatened one of his family members.

The GOP is demanding a federal investigation, citing concerns about the midterm elections.

Kentucky Republicans are calling for a federal investigation into Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes over a long list of allegations made by a top election official who alleges she is abusing her authority.

"Kentuckians deserve to know their elections are being conducted fairly and without bias and, from the looks of Secretary Grimes' actions, that may not be the case this fall," Mac Brown, chairman of the state GOP, told the Courier Journal on Tuesday.

The comments come a day after Jared Dearing, executive director of the state board of elections, called out Grimes in a thunderous nine-page missive.

Brown said Republicans, who have majorities in the state House at stake this fall, want the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct a thorough investigation into Grimes' office.

Background: Kentucky elections board official accuses Grimes of abusing authority

"In what is sure to be a closely contested election, every vote will count and, if Secretary Grimes intends to have her finger on the scales, she needs to be stopped," Brown said.

Brown said he also wants state whistleblower protections to be extended for Dearing and Jennifer Scutchfield, who serve as the board's assistant director, to protect them from being fired.

The board met behind closed doors for several hours Tuesday but made no move to terminate Dearing after reconvening. Dearing told the Courier Journal that he stands by his letter criticizing Grimes’ actions.

Grimes said on Tuesday night that the board of elections listened to Dearing’s concerns and that the board’s decision was to move forward for the fall election. She said she “vigorously disputes” Dearing’s allegations and that they have no merit.

Dearing, a Democrat, said in his letter that since he took the position last year either Grimes or her assistants have asked him and Scutchfield to do things "we have found to be inappropriate, unethical and potentially illegal."

Chief among them is an allegation that Grimes' office has interfered with a federal court-ordered settlement made with the U.S. Department of Justice.

See also: Grimes dismisses GOP complaints about her Rand Paul 'beaten' joke

The consent decree stems from a lawsuit filed by the Judicial Watch, a conservative-leaning group that claimed Grimes had not properly cleared Kentucky's voter rolls of people who hadn't voted in the past six years.

State officials mailed out roughly 600,000 postcards as part of the agreement in order to confirm the identity of those registered voters.

Dearing said in his letter, which he provided to the Courier Journal on Monday, that after about 100,000 postcards were returned he was ordered to stop scanning them by Grimes' staff. He said they were told to "slow walk" the process after he and Scutchfield raised concerns about disobeying the federal court order.

Grimes spokesman Bradford Queen said the board of elections, which Grimes oversees as Kentucky's chief election officer, received Dearing's complaint Monday morning.

"The complaint is baseless and lacks a basic understanding of the constitutional role and duties of the chief election official and the chair of the board and its staff,” he said in a statement Monday.

Among the other allegations in Dearing's letter:

► Grimes has given herself, through emergency authority from the board, the power to send poll workers across county lines into any location in the commonwealth at her discretion.

► Grimes has given her office the authority to recruit poll workers at the county level that "potentially allows for the office of the (secretary of state) to pick and choose poll workers with no opposing party oversight."

► Grimes has improper access to and use of the state's Voter Registration Database that she uses for "inappropriate reasons, which include, but may not be limited to, the use of VRS to look up potential state board of election state employees during the interview process."

► Grimes has improperly obtained access to voter registration information for about approximately 15,000 poll workers, "in order to mail a letter of gratitude directly from" Grimes on an official letterhead.

Dearing said as a result he has requested an ethics investigation into the secretary of state's actions.

These new claims against Grimes are being aired almost a year after Matt Selph, a former assistant executive director, said Grimes was improperly gathering voter information during campaigns.

Selph, a Republican, claimed he was fired from the board in retaliation for raising those concerns. He has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against Grimes.

"Seeing as how the complaints lodged yesterday mirror those made last fall by the board's previous leadership, we feel there is more than enough evidence to warrant a substantial investigation into Secretary Grimes' actions," said Brown, the GOP chairman.

Dearing, who previously worked as a legislative aide in the Louisville Metro Council, said that he is concerned that he will be fired as well.

"I am fairly confident that once I send this letter, any career I had or would have had as a public servant in government is over," he said.

Listen: Grimes jokes about Rand Paul's attack at the Democratic bean supper

The letter describes Grimes as overbearing and creating a hostile work environment. It alleges she improperly contacted one of Dearing's family members about a lack of personal loyalty to her for raising these concerns and she regularly berated him.

"In retaliation to my protest of the items above and other actions, Secretary Grimes has yelled at me, screamed at me, and spoken to me in derogatory terms that have offended me to the core of who I am as an individual," he said.

Dearing also said that Grimes' staff regularly disparage some of the 120 county clerks, who oversee local elections, and view them in strictly partisan terms.

"If a clerk is deemed to be 'too Republican' or a clerk unwilling to work with the secretary on her terms, we have been told to not work with these individuals," he said.

These allegations also arrive just as Grimes was hitting a new stride politically after being thumped by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a closely watched race four years ago.

Grimes received rave reviews for her performance at the annual Fancy Farm political picnic this month. She is among the top names being floated for either governor or attorney general in 2019.

Watch: Grimes zings Republicans over former House Speaker Jeff Hoover texts

As of late she has been more vocal on national issues as well, and has touted the need for tighter election security.

Grimes announced this month that the board of elections is coordinating with county officials to build a hacker-proof voting system using a roughly $6 million federal grant.

The majority of that money is being used to upgrade electronic voting machines across Kentucky to paper-trail machines in order to reduce susceptibility to hacking. The new machines also can be audited to detect fraud.

Officials hope to have the updated equipment in place in time for the 2020 election.

"This is not something that we can continue to put off," Grimes told the Courier Journal at the time.

Asked if Republicans think Grimes should recuse herself from overseeing the 2018 contests, GOP spokesman Tres Watson said: "We have very serious concerns about the accusations against Secretary Grimes and her ability to oversee this fall’s election in an impartial manner."

Here is a copy of the letter from the executive director of the #Kentucky board of elections calling for an ethics investigation into the @KySecofState office.



"I have been asked by @AlisonForKY... to do things we have found to be inappropriate, unethical & potentially illegal." pic.twitter.com/EBKDqvRRTD — Philmonger (@phillipmbailey) August 27, 2018

Reporter Phillip M. Bailey can be reached at 502-582-4475 or pbailey@courierjournal.com. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/philb.