North Carolina GOP’s New Power Grab Is A ‘Recipe For Disaster’ For Elections, Too

In the waning days of its supermajority, the Republican-dominated North Carolina legislature is attempting to push through legislation, disguised as a hurricane relief bill, in an overt attempt to strip power from the newly-elected Democratic governor and attorney general before they take office next year. 

Although the legislation is most overtly an attempt to shore up  Republican power before the new term, the 132-page bill also includes provisions that would radically restructure the way that elections are run throughout the entire state. These election changes, according to election experts and election administrators, will make it more difficult for election workers to carry out their responsibilities during the next election. 

“Putting aside that there is clearly an effort to bypass the voters, this is a radical restructuring of core election responsibilities in the state,” David Becker, the executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, explained in an interview with TPM. “Not just the state board level, at the county board level. Every single county in the state and the state board would see a complete reconfiguration with new personnel.”

Senate Bill 382 places a number of new burdens on election officials. For one, it compresses the timeframe for counting of provisional ballots into a short three-day window — a process that, under current law, takes ten days to complete.  

In a letter to lawmakers expressing her concerns about the legislation shared with TPM, Sara LaVere, director of the Brunswick County Board of Elections and President of the North Carolina Association of Directors of Elections, wrote that this new compressed timeline “is not feasible for our office and risks compromising the accuracy and thoroughness of our work.”

“To ensure the accuracy of our recommendations to the Board of Elections, our staff needs more time than the proposed three-day window allows,” she added. “Condensing this process could lead to errors, jeopardizing the integrity of the election and voter confidence in the process.”

The measure also shortens the window that voters have to cure ballots — giving voters until noon on Friday after Election Day to fix their ballots if they made a mistake, instead of the six-day window that the law currently allows for. The bill also compresses the amount of time officials have to count absentee ballots. 

“That’s just going to put tremendous pressures on election officials and voters, obviously — very likely lead to valid votes, not counted, and just significant strains on election offices and their staffs,” Becker told TPM.

Other state-level election officials have expressed concerns about being left in the dark about the bill, as well. 

Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections said in a statement on the legislation, shared with TPM: “State Board staff were not consulted about this significant piece of legislation that transfers authority of the State Board of Elections and makes substantial administrative changes that may make it impossible for the county boards of elections to adequately ensure every eligible ballot cast is counted, especially in high turnout elections.”

And, perhaps most notably, the bill gives the newly elected Republican state auditor Dave Boliek, instead of the newly-elected Democratic governor, authority over the state’s five-member election board. No other state gives the state auditor this type of authority over elections. It’s no coincidence that Boliek is the first Republican since 2009 to hold the state auditor position. 

Although current-Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the bill on Tuesday, the legislature, which holds its veto-proof supermajority until December 31, is expected to override the veto before that point. 

In some ways this situation is not dissimilar to the one that played out with the Republican-controlled Georgia state election board just a few short months before the presidential election. 

The MAGA-dominated Georgia election board attempted, unsuccessfully, to implement a series of new rules that would have given the board the power to potentially delay election certification and sow seeds of chaos into the election system. 

The changes that are being proposed in North Carolina, however, have more far-reaching implications, experts told TPM.

“If Georgia was a rainstorm, this is a category five hurricane,” Becker said. 

Becker pointed out that in Georgia, unlike in North Carolina, there was no attempt to bypass the regular legislative process.

Not only is SB 382 a clear attempt to bypass the voters, it will also completely reconfigure election administration in every county throughout the state. 

“It is a complete recipe for disaster,” Becker said.