NC auditor hires former GOP director in new ‘election integrity’ oversight role
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- NC Auditor Dave Boliek named ex-GOP director Dallas Woodhouse election liaison.
- Woodhouse will coordinate between auditor's office and 100 county election boards.
- Role arises after 2024 law gave GOP control over election board appointments.
The former director of the North Carolina Republican Party has a new role: election oversight for the state auditor’s office.
Dallas Woodhouse, who led the state GOP from 2015 to 2019, will serve as the election liaison in Auditor Dave Boliek’s office. The newly created position will make Woodhouse the point person between the auditor’s office and the state’s 100 county election boards.
A spokesperson for the auditor’s office confirmed Woodhouse’s hire to The News & Observer on Friday, saying his responsibilities would include “assisting local boards in efforts to ensure election integrity while encouraging maximum participation in elections.”
Woodhouse did not respond to a request for comment.
Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, said the new role appeared to be a “fairly broad grant of power.”
“Since we don’t have any precedent for a position like this in the auditor’s office, I just don’t know exactly what it means and what authority he’s gonna have.”
The new hire is the latest development in North Carolina’s overhaul of its election apparatus.
For over a century, the governor had control over appointments to state and local election boards. But following Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s 2024 victory, Republican lawmakers stripped him of that power and gave it to Boliek, a Republican.
After the bill took effect in May, Boliek appointed Republican majorities to the State Board of Elections and all 100 county election boards.
While the legislation enabled Boliek to make appointments and oversee the State Board of Elections’ budget process, it specifies that the board “shall exercise all its prescribed statutory powers independently of the state auditor.”
According to an email sent to county election board chairs, Woodhouse will serve as the auditor’s “eyes and ears on the ground” and be a resource for election officials in “developing robust early voting plans, election policy and proper oversight.”
Woodhouse has spent years working to help Republicans win elections, but he has not worked directly in election administration.
He has been outspoken in his support for conservative election policy in the past, having advocated for limiting early voting and getting rid of Sunday voting.
And in 2016, Woodhouse asked the Wake County Board of Elections to appoint his cousin as chair of the board, The N&O previously reported.
This story was originally published September 26, 2025 at 1:51 PM with the headline "NC auditor hires former GOP director in new ‘election integrity’ oversight role."
