NC GOP wants to restructure state elections board, stripping governor of appointment power
North Carolina’s top Republicans introduced legislation to drastically restructure the State Board of Elections, taking away the power of the governor to appoint its members and creating an even partisan split among the powerful board.
Under the new law, the board would have an even number of Republicans and Democrats, all of whom would be appointed by legislative leaders rather than the governor.
“North Carolinians deserve to have confidence in the elections process,” Senate Leader Phil Berger said at a press conference on Monday. “We believe this bill moves us in that direction.”
Currently, the State Board is structured to have two Republicans, two Democrats and one member from the governor’s party. That means the board has been controlled by Democrats since Gov. Roy Cooper came into office in 2017.
The bill would change it to an eight-member board with members nominated by the state chair of each party. The top two legislative leaders of each party would have final say on approving the nominees. If passed, these changes would go into effect before the 2024 presidential election.
A similar bill passed in 2016 was later ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court.
Cooper denounced the proposal in a statement on Twitter.
“The legislative Republican record is clear: Rig elections with gerrymandered districts, make it harder for people they disagree with to vote, and make it easier to throw those votes out,” he wrote. “Now they want to seize control of the State Board of Elections despite the Supreme Court repeatedly ruling that to be an unconstitutional power grab. The last thing our democracy needs is for our elections to be run by people who want to rig them for partisan gain.”
Charged with administering elections and overseeing campaign finance disclosures, the state board is also responsible for certifying election results. It currently takes four of the five board members to order a new election. This bill would only require a simple majority to do so, though that would mean at least one member would have to cross party lines.
The bill would impose similar changes on all 100 county boards of election in the state, making them an even 2-2 split between Republicans and Democrats and having legislative leaders appoint them rather than the State Board. This part of the bill would not go into effect until 2025, though.
In a statement, Senate Minority Leader Dan Blue said the bill “goes straight to the heart of democracy.”
“This is a power grab, plain and simple,” the statement continued. “Republican lawmakers have tried and failed to take over state and local elections for years. It is not the role of the legislature to oversee our elections, it is an executive function.”
The bill is the latest in a series of measures aimed at removing the governor’s appointment powers. This session alone, lawmakers have advanced measures to strip the governor’s appointments to a bevy of boards and commissions — some of which are likely to be challenged in court.
Elections a major Republican focus
This is the second major elections bill filed by top Republicans this month. The first bill, released June 1, would institute a variety of election changes pushed for by conservative election integrity groups, such as shortening the deadline by which absentee ballots can be received and banning the use of private funds for election administration.
Before introducing the bill, GOP leaders met with Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who worked with former President Donald Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Mitchell’s group, the Election Integrity Network, has pushed for similar election law changes across the country.
Jim Womack, who leads the North Carolina chapter of EIN, told The News & Observer that his group did not push for any changes to the State Board of Elections.
“The General Assembly is intimately familiar with what works and what doesn’t work in terms of governance of the state,” he said. “We defer to their judgment on that kind of stuff.”
A familiar attempt
Republicans introduced a similar bill in 2016 shortly after Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper was elected. The bill would have merged the State Board of Elections and the State Ethics Commission and created an eight-member board with four Republicans and four Democrats — stripping the governor of his power to appoint a majority of the board.
In 2018, the state Supreme Court struck the law down, saying it violated the state Constitution’s separation of powers clause.
Back then, the court had a Democratic majority, but now the court is dominated by Republicans, who have a 5-2 majority.
Republicans put similar election board changes forward as a constitutional amendment in 2018, but over 61% of voters rejected it.
Berger argued that the voter’s decision in 2018 does not mean North Carolinians would disapprove of this new law.
“It’s our belief that people think that and believe rightly that elections should be free from partisanship in terms of their administration,” he said.
This story was originally published June 12, 2023 at 3:21 PM with the headline "NC GOP wants to restructure state elections board, stripping governor of appointment power."
