A local Board of Elections warned lawmakers of a “concerted effort to turn Henderson County blue” through improper verification of absentee and new voter applications, predicting a win for Democrats statewide if legislators failed to intervene. “I want to strongly state my belief that if you do not intervene immediately either legislatively or legally, we are going to lose NC to the Dems in November which will likely mean we lose the country,” Linda Rebuck, a Republican member of the Board of Elections, said in the letter to legislators. “The responsibility will be yours, one way or the other.”

Rebuck's warning earned her a reprimand from the North Carolina State Board of Elections for spreading “false and misleading statements”

Responding to Rebuck's email, the state board’s executive director, Karen Brinson Bell, called the statements “sensationalistic and inflammatory,"