I first met Scott Taylor at a Hampton Roads Pride launch event when he was - in my view - pandering to LGBT voters and claiming to be "LGBT friendly," a pretense he has continued. At the time, I had a hard to define reaction that Taylor was a bit off and not necessarily genuine. Nonetheless, I backed Taylor over Randy Forbes, a former law school classmate who had become a Christian zealot over the intervening years and supportive of endless anti-gay efforts. I figured Taylor was the lesser of the two evils. Fast forward to today, and Taylor has largely marched lock step with the Trump/Pence, the most anti-LGBT regime in decades which is actively undermining LGBT rights and rescinding LGBT non-discrimination protections. Now, the unease I felt about Taylor has been quantified by the ongoing scandal over the fraudulent signatures collected by Taylor's campaign staffers to put Shaun Brown on the November ballot as an independent candidate for Taylor's congressional seat. The obvious goal: to drain votes from Taylor's Democrat challenger, Elaine Luria. The Virginian Pilot looks at the deepening scandal. Here are some tawdry details:
The problem was that Floyd Newkirk died in 2016 at the age of 83, according to his obituary. He was a retired Marine, Korean War veteran and long-distance truck driver. Eddie Newkirk was disheartened to hear that his deceased father’s name was used for political gain. “I’m not surprised,” he said. “But I’m disappointed that someone would stoop to that level.”The elder Newkirk was one of four Virginia Beach men who had died in recent years but whose names appeared on the petitions. The others were Hugh Doy, Melvin Chittum and R. Stuart Cake.
A team of reporters from The Virginian-Pilot conducted a two-week investigation of Brown’s petition signatures, trying to contact each voter listed on the dozens of pages submitted by five people paid by Taylor’s campaign. The Pilot reached 115 of the 584 people listed – or a family member – by phone.
Of those reached, 51 people – including several local Republican politicians – acknowledged signing the petition. Six others weren’t sure whether they did. But 59 – more than half of those reached – declared the signatures to be fraudulent.
Some of the fake entries contained misspelled names. Others included an outdated address next to the name. One person was in the hospital being treated for throat cancer on the day he was reported to have signed. Another said she was out of town attending a graduation ceremony.
Many of those named were elderly people, including Floyd Felten of Virginia Beach, whose name also was misspelled. Felten’s daughter, Carol Campbell, said she’s sure that her father didn’t sign. “He’s 102,” Campbell said. “He really can’t sign his name that well.”
Most of those who said they didn’t sign had no idea how their names ended up on the petitions. Some said they were Taylor supporters or Republicans, had given money to Taylor’s campaign, were on an email list for him or had agreed to put his campaign signs in their yards.
Most of the signatures submitted by the Taylor supporters were obtained during a two-day blitz on June 8 and 9, just days before the June 12 filing deadline.
Brown, a Hampton businesswoman who ran as a Democrat against Taylor in 2016, has said she didn’t know that Taylor staffers were collecting signatures for her. She faces trial in October on charges that she defrauded the federal government through a summer meal program for children. She was tried on the charges in federal court earlier this month, but the case ended with a hung jury. She did not return a call from The Pilot seeking comment for this story.
The Pilot found five people associated with Taylor’s campaign listed as being among the circulators of the petitions: Heather Guillot, Lauren Creekmore, Roberta Marciano, Daniel Bohner and Nicholas Hornung.
Federal Election Commission records show that Creekmore, Marciano and Hornung each received payments from Taylor’s campaign this year that were listed as payroll disbursements. Creekmore received five payments totaling $6,036; Marciano got three for $3,097; and Hornung got two for a total of $2,041, the records show.
Guillot, who served as chief of staff and campaign manager for former Republican state Del. Rocky Holcomb, had the most that were questioned – 29 reported as fraudulent. She also was the only one who had the names of dead people listed on her submitted petitions. Thirteen people claimed that signatures submitted by Marciano were forged, and 12 said the same about signatures handed in by Creekmore.
Taylor spokesman Scott Weldon refused to say whether any of them were still associated with the campaign.
Before submitting petitions to get Brown on the November ballot, workers were required to sign an affidavit on the back of each page. They promised that they had witnessed the signature of each person named on the document. They also acknowledged that breaking this promise would make them guilty of a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $2,500 fine. Each affidavit also had to be notarized.
If the prosecutor determines there’s enough evidence to support charges in the case, they likely would include felonies such as filing false statements or perjury, said Matthew Shapanka, an attorney in Washington, D.C., who specializes in political law.
Among those who acknowledged signing the petitions were numerous employees of the Virginia Beach Sheriff’s Office, a detail first reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The Pilot’s investigation found 52 sheriff’s employees listed on petitions submitted by Taylor’s campaign staff. . . . they were passed around during the workday by members of his staff, not the Taylor campaign members who signed affidavits on those pages.
If that’s the case, then those 52 signatures also were obtained illegally, said Rebecca Green, a professor at the College of William & Mary’s law school who runs the election law program.
Taylor's feigned lack of knowledge defies belief. Sadly, Taylor has shown that he is not only only too willing to dupe LGBT voters, but he seeming also subscribes to the morally bankrupt standards of Trump. Taylor needs to be voted out of office in November.
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