A Democrat County Supervisor in Buchanan County, Virginia has been indicted on 82 felony counts stemming from an alleged election fraud and corruption scheme following a 2-year state police investigation. Included in the charges filed against Trey Adkins, of the county’s Knox District, are 34 counts of false statements related to election fraud and 11 counts of absentee voting violations.
A grand jury handed down the indictments and the case will be prosecuted by the Commonwealth’s Attorney from nearby Russell County, Zack Stoots. According to the grand jury’s report, Adkins has relied on an illegal absentee vote harvesting scheme since he was first elected to public office in 2011, repeating the process in his 2015 and 2019 bids for re-election. All told, Trey Adkins will face 34 counts of False Statement – Election Fraud, 11 counts of Absentee Voting Procedure Violation, 8 counts of Public Embezzlement, 11 counts of Forgery of Public Record, 15 counts of Uttering Public Record, and 3 counts of Conspiracy to Make a False Statement – Election Fraud.
Indicted alongside Democrat Supervisor Trey Adkins is his aunt, Sherry Lynn Bailey, who herself is facing 12 charges stemming from the alleged election fraud scheme, bringing the total number of charges filed to a whopping 94. Bailey will face 4 counts of False Statement – Election Fraud, 4 counts of Conspiracy to Make a False Statement, and 4 counts of Forgery of Public Record.
Investigations have shown that the scheme included hundreds of absentee ballots per election cycle and Adkins, with the help of his aunt, is said to have personally run the operation, showing up at the homes of voters himself with absentee applications and ballots to ensure he would have their vote. As Buchanan County is a small community, the margin of victory in Adkins’ election was only within a couple of hundred votes, giving his scheme all the more impact.
Outside the grand jury report and statements already given to the media, prosecutors say they won’t be releasing any further details to the public before trial.
In a live-streamed video posted to Facebook after the charges were filed, Adkins seemed to come right out and say that he’d been pushing the absentee voting system to its limit to get elected for the past 10 years and accused those who oppose his practices of voter intimidation. Much to the contrary, as shown in court records, some voters have said that they were so scarred by their experience with Adkins, that they plan on never voting again.
“It went on 10 years ago at one of my prior elections, my first election that I won, uh, you know, voters that voted absentee got harassed and asked various questions and had a target on their back,” Adkins said before claiming to be “thankful” that the charges have been filed so that the “truth” will come out. Adkins says he has no plans of stepping down from public office as the case shakes out, remarking that it will be a “cold day in hell” when that happens and calling those opposed to his alleged election fraud scheme “vicious people.”
Though Trey Adkins is an elected Democrat, Buchanan County, which is positioned in Virginia’s Southwest coal-producing region, has experienced a rapid transition from a deep blue to a deep red electorate, thanks in large part to Democrats’ abandonment of white, blue collar voters and their support for anti-coal policies. In 2020, a massive 83.5% of Buchanan County voters supported President Trump at the ballot box. Like other Appalachian communities, the area has struggled with flooding, drug addiction, and poverty as far-left policies have wrecked the local economy, and America has become increasingly dependent on foreign energy sources, breaking local job prospects for many.
Adkins was among the first of Southwest Virginia’s local politicians to support enacting COVID controls on his constituents, crafting a local travel ban and restrictions on human movements in 2020.
