South Central Reporter

Attorney general candidate Thomas DeVore is questioning tactics he claims were undertaken by gubernatorial candidate Richard Irvin to win the Lake County straw poll.

"Here is the video of Mr. Irvin’s people leaving that he bussed in to artificially inflate the straw poll on Lake County," DeVore said on Facebook. "Is cheating to win worth it? I’m disappointed!! I’ll explain more later but these poor Indian senior citizens didn’t even understand who the candidates were. I heard one of these folks who voted get asked what they thought about Irvin and they didn’t even know who he was even though they just voted for him." 

DeVore’s disbelief comes after claims that Irvin’s campaign bussed in Indian senior citizens who allegedly did not know who Irvin was.

"I expected that only registered voters who vote in Republican primaries could vote," a source told Lake County Gazette. "They were clearly from outside of Lake County and had no connection to our county Republican Party. But all were voting for Richard Irvin."

DeVore has rode a wave of victories in court that has resulted in the repeal of unconstitutional mask mandates and COVID regulations.

"And to the extent [that] I don't want that to happen again and see the children and the parents and businesses go through this, I felt the only way I could even do that was through the Attorney General's Office," he said. "And so I made the decision that even though I'm not much for politics and I'm not going to play any political games that they like to do, I'm just going to say this is what I'll do if you want to elect me and here I am.”

The Greenville-based attorney had originally planned to compete for a judgeship, but he changed his mind and decided to run for the position of state attorney general. In the June 28 primary, he'll face David Shestokas.