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Letter to the editor
Elections office witchhunt needs to come to an end
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Forsyth County News
It’s not the amount of smoke, but the smoke and mirrors detractors of Gary Smith are using when they make their baseless accusations against him.

Last week’s letter by Chris Goldston was filled with misdirection. So Brant Meadows has been on the Elections Board since 2002; that doesn’t mean he’s qualified to micromanage the day-to-day operations of our elections process, especially since he’s never attended any state-offered training in elections as Gary Smith or his replacement, Barbara Luth, has. In fact, neither Brant Meadows nor Janis Thomas has ever attended training in elections processes, and neither are Certified Elections Officials, as both Gary Smith and Barbara Luth are.

And what is more effective in making a case for investigation than to list people who might have issues with Gary Smith, even if none of them has any veracity in this instance? You’ll note that Mr. Goldston did not list the cast of characters which has really been driving this debacle for years – David Milum and Terry Sweeney. It sounds so much better when a TV “investigative reporter” is cited (even though there were five errors of fact in his report), and two independent auditors — the first of which never questioned Gary Smith on their “findings” before submitting their report and the second who merely copied the first auditor’s work.

Which brings us to the “all of our commissioners” comment by Mr. Goldston. That would be the same commissioners who authorized an additional $25,000 of our tax dollars to David Sawyer so that he might complete his report on Gary Smith, not even knowing that Mr. Sawyer did nothing but make conclusions based on the original auditor’s report for which the county had already paid $10,000 two years previously! The same report which never asked Gary Smith for any information before being published! Where is the indignation regarding this recent mismanagement of tax dollars?

What will all these people do when the Department of Justice comes back with nothing to investigate? The handful of conspiracy theorists wasting our tax dollars on this issue will find something else, I’m sure.

David W. Richard

Gainesville