Elections board, absentee, early vote changes heard by North Carolina Senate panel

North Carolina Republican senators began on Wednesday to attempt to advance wide-ranging voting measures addressing early and absentee balloting and transferring control over the state election board from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to legislative leaders.

The sponsors of the two measures pitched to a Senate committee said they're designed to boost trust in elections, ensure only qualified people can vote and build bipartisan consensus in election administration.

“It is up to us as a legislature to take steps to instill confidence in North Carolina voters that the outcome is sound regardless of who wins,” said Senate Majority Leader Paul Newton of Cabarrus County, a co-sponsors of both bills. Committee votes could come Thursday.

But voting rights advocates said the bills are GOP power grabs completed under the pretense of combatting nearly nonexistent voter fraud but that could cancel tens of thousands of otherwise lawful ballots. Those votes could make the difference between who wins close statewide and local races in 2024.

“These proposed changes are not about fairness or balance," Chantal Stevens, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, said at a news conference before the committee meeting. "They are thinly veiled attempts to manipulate the electoral system in favor of those who seek to consolidate their power at the expense of the people’s voice."

Three provisions in one omnibus voting measure considered are very similar to those contained in previous years' legislation that Cooper successfully vetoed. But Republicans now hold veto-proof majorities in both General Assembly chambers, making the path to enactment easier.

The other bill would increase immediately the State Board of Elections from five members to eight members. The Senate leader, House speaker and House and Senate minority leaders each would make two appointments. Almost continuously for over a century, the governor has appointed a five-member board, and historically there's been a 3-2 split favoring the sitting governor's party. The proposal likely would create a 4-4 split among Democrats and Republicans, although legislative leaders wouldn't be prevented from appointing an unaffiliated voter to the board.

Newton and other Republicans argue a board controlled by one party places a partisan tinge on the panel's actions.

State courts have sided with Cooper after he's challenged previous GOP laws that tried to alter the board, ruling that the governor needs to have enough control over board appointments to ensure state laws are carried out faithfully.

Senate Democrats and their allies said creating an even-numbered state board — as well as even-numbered county election boards also being proposed — is a recipe for gridlock. They said more election results would be settled in court because county and state board members will be deadlocked on certifying results.

And if election boards are unable to agree on where a county will set up early in-person voting sites, state law directs that only one site be open in the entire county, Ann Webb with Common Cause North Carolina told the committee.

The omnibus election bill covers more than 30 sections. One previous item vetoed by Cooper and contained in the measure would remove the state’s three-day grace period after an election for a traditional absentee ballot to arrive by mail for it to count. Instead, ballots would have to be submitted to a county board of elections office by 7:30 p.m. on the day of the election — when polls close statewide — to count.

Republicans again are trying to prohibit election boards and officials in counties from accepting private money to administer elections, a proposal that Cooper vetoed in 2021. And another item from a 2019 bill Cooper vetoed would tell state courts to send information to election officials about potential jurors being disqualified because they aren’t U.S. citizens for their eventual removal from voter rolls.

Republicans have already altered one new provision in the bill addressing ballots cast at early in-person voting sites by people who also are registering to vote. The original version would have required all same-day registrants to cast provisional ballots that wouldn't count unless the voter’s identity is affirmed later. The amended version would scale back the use of provisional ballots. But Sen. Julie Mayfield, a Buncombe County Democrat, feared the language would still mean the ballots of many college students also registering won't count.