Les Merritt

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Leslie ("Les") Merritt is a Republican politician from the U.S. state of North Carolina and the current North Carolina State Auditor, a position to which he was elected in 2004.

Merritt was born and raised in rural Sampson County. He and his wife now live in the eastern Wake County town of Zebulon. After earning degrees in economics and accounting from North Carolina State University and becoming a Certified Public Accountant, Merritt served as the president of the Zebulon Lions and Rotary clubs, and of the Zebulon Elementary School PTA. Merritt was elected to the Wake County Board of Commissioners in 1994, a post he held until 1998. Professionally, he served as president of Merritt, Petway, Mills & Hockaday, an accounting & auditing firm with offices in Zebulon and Raleigh, prior to being elected State Auditor. In 2000, he challenged incumbent Democratic State Auditor Ralph Campbell, and was narrowly defeated. In a 2004 rematch against Campbell, Merritt narrowly defeated the three-term incumbent, campaigning on a platform of fiscal conservatism. During his campaign, Merritt touted his record on the Wake County Board of Commissioners. He sits as one of only three Republicans on the majority Democratic North Carolina Council of State.

In June 2007, the N.C. Democratic Party and other liberal interest groups attacked Merritt because of an attempt to delay a vote a Senate bill that would have authorized same day registration. According to the Democratic Party's characterizations, Merritt based his concern on a report his office produced, which they say he quickly withdrew due to substantial inaccuracies. According to Merritt's account, his office was still in the process of conducting the strategic audit that led them to ask the Senate to delay a vote on the bill until his office's research on the issue was complete. The Democrats also state that Merritt alleged widespread irregularities including "24,821 invalid driver's license numbers in the voter registration database, 380 people who appear to have voted after their dates of death and others who were under age 18 when they voted." According to the Democrats' account, Merritt was unable to provide any instance of actual voting fraud and failed to mention reasonable explanations for the data discrepancies. Again, according to Merritt's account, his office was not yet finished with the report and was simply seeking time to complete its work.

On September 6, 2007, the News & Observer's "Under the Dome" blog ran a piece which revealed that the N.C. Democratic Party has been manipulating this Wikipedia page.

Merritt recently announced his plans to seek re-election in 2008.