Politics

Report: UNC to discipline administrators from latest O’Keefe voter fraud sting video

Matthew Boyle Investigative Reporter
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The University of North Carolina plans to discipline administrators caught on camera by James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas in the group’s latest voter fraud sting video, according to a local news report.

“While the scenarios described in the video were false, some of our administrators responded inappropriately, and we are taking disciplinary action against those who used poor judgment in their approach to these student imposters,” UNC chancellor Holden Thorp said in a statement to ABC News 11 in Raleigh.

“Our administrators are instinctively supportive of our students, and they empathize with them,” Thorp added. “But regardless of the questionable tactics used to elicit their comments, these employees should have offered better advice and guidance.”

In the North Carolina video, several UNC officials, when told of a Democrat-friendly election fraud scheme purportedly committed by a student and his friends, encouraged the perpetrators to lie about it. An actor, posing as fictitious UNC student “Jason Rainier,” is seen discussing the election fraud scheme with Assistant Dean of Students for Community Relations Dean Blackburn, and with LGBTQ Center Director Terri Phoenix.

Neither objected to the young man’s voter-fraud activity, which he termed “Operation Chaos.”

A UNC spokesperson told The Daily Caller the university can’t provide more details as to which specific administrators UNC plans to discipline and how the university will punish them. “University policy and the North Carolina State Personnel Act prohibit us from further comment about disciplinary action,” the spokesperson said in an email.*

O’Keefe’s video comes at a fortuitous time for proponents of voter ID laws in North Carolina. The state’ legislature passed voter ID legislation last summer, but the state’s now lame-duck Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue vetoed it. Since then, state legislators have been trying to gather enough votes to override Perdue’s veto.

On Wednesday, North Carolina’s House Speaker Thom Tillis, a Republican, told local news station WRAL that he is cautiously optimistic about the possibility of passing such a law with enough votes to override the Perdue veto in the coming weeks.

“I’m guardedly optimistic we can get something out,” Tillis said.

*This article was updated after publication to include a response from UNC.

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