As today’s Our View is being written, we don’t know who the next sheriff of Robeson County will be, and we have a genuine concern that it could be Ronnie Patterson. If that were to happen, then we will have a sheriff who is not only a serial perjurer, but one who is currently under investigation concerning the removal of at least part of his personnel files from Red Springs Town Hall.

If he doesn’t win, then Red Springs will continue to have a police chief who is a serial perjurer and one who is under investigation. Incredibly, the town knew Patterson had lied under oath when it hired him as police chief. How can that happen?

We know at one point Patterson was considered the clear front-runner for sheriff, but his campaign couldn’t shoot straight, and its clumsiness raises serious questions about how effective he would be as a sheriff.

Early on the campaign repeated the lie that Burnis Wilkins had used racial epithets in front of a crowd in Parkton. When a Facebook video showed that didn’t happen, the camp changed the story of when the slurs were used, but only the blind were playing along at that point.

Patterson repeatedly stood before crowds and claimed that crime was down in Red Springs, but it is not. The crime rate in Red Springs is second worst among the municipalities in Robeson County. The truth is a Google away.

After Patterson misspoke about being “fair” to drug dealers, a high-profile paid hauler pitched a fit, and went on Facebook to declare she would haul 500 drug dealers to the polls. The Patterson campaign did little to distance itself from the hauler, but in fairness, it couldn’t. The campaign realized any hopes of winning the election depended on hauling folks who knew little more than what a pre-marked sample ballot told them.

The campaign went out of its way to deny that Patterson had been targeted by a sexual harassment allegation and that he had committed perjury during the investigation, which we all know now were just more lies.

Patterson continued to stand in front of crowds and swear that the personnel files that mysteriously walked out of Red Springs Town Hall and into our office were fraudulent. He did this at the same time the town of Red Springs was demanding the files be returned and John McNeill, one of his campaign managers, wasn’t denying their authenticity. Instead the former Red Springs mayor was calling for an investigation and suggesting this newspaper had been complicit in their disappearance. When the investigation began, McNeill questioned why that was happening.

If Patterson has not been elected sheriff, we know that this newspaper will be blamed by that camp, but we have done nothing except report the truth. We have looked hard in the other direction, electing not to challenge some of his obviously inflated claims, such as crime being down in Red Springs.

We know that the truth is the first casualty in political campaigns, and candidates routinely embellish their achievements, so we tried to keep the campaign focused on the now and the future.

But the sexual harassment allegation and the perjury raised questions about his integrity, and his effectiveness as a sheriff since any prosecutor would be reluctant to put him on the stand. It is incredible to us that Patterson did not withdraw his candidacy, and entering Tuesday many political experts believed he was leading.

If Patterson has lost the sheriff’s race, than he should blame himself and those who managed his campaign so poorly, telling lies that were so easy to disprove.

If Patterson has been elected sheriff, then we fear for a county whose sheriff-elect is under an investigation, one we believe might expand.