The big lie behind the NC’s ‘No Partisan Advantage’ elections bill | Opinion

The name of the bill sounds like a spoof.

North Carolina’s Republican state lawmakers – the masters of gerrymandering – are proposing a bill titled “No Partisan Advantage in Elections.”

As that Orwellian title suggests, Senate Bill 749 is really about increasing partisan advantage in elections.

The bill claims to advance fair elections by ending the practice of the governor appointing five members of the State Board of Elections from a list of nominees submitted by the Democratic and Republican Party chairs. Currently, the governor can appoint up to three members of his party and appointments to county election boards are weighted 3-2 in favor of the governor’s party. The bill would increase the state board from five to eight members and reduce county boards from five to four members. The appointments to the state and county boards would be evenly split between Democratic and Republican leaders in the General Assembly.

This sounds like an even balance, but is actually a formula for impasse. And when these evenly divided boards can’t agree on who should be the chair, or the state board can’t agree on who should be hired as the state director elections, who would resolve the impasse? The bill says those ties will be decided by the General Assembly, which for now means it will be decided by Republican lawmakers.

That’s not an improvement. It’s Republican legislative leaders trying to usurp yet more power from the executive branch and gain greater influence over the management of elections.

Republicans tried this before in an effort to keep incoming Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, from appointing a Democratic majority to the State Board of Elections. In 2017, a three-judge state appeals court panel rejected the move as a violation of the North Carolina Constitution, particularly its separation of powers clause.

These days Republican legislative leaders don’t believe in the idea of three equal branches providing checks and balances on each other. Instead they want one dominant branch of government – the legislative – with the executive branch limited to carrying out the legislature’s orders and the judicial branch there to say whatever the legislature does is OK.

Republicans are dressing up this partisan move by claiming it could give unaffiliated voters more say in the conduct of elections. They note that the proposed law would not require legislative leaders to name members of their party to the State Board of Elections.

A Republican news release said this lack of a requirement “allows the legislative leaders to have the flexibility to appoint unaffiliated voters to the board.” But beyond that “flexibility” the bill provides no mechanism for unaffiliated voters to have a seat at the table.

This bill’s deception is crowned by the Republicans’ claim about why it’s needed. Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, explained it in the news release: “We are living in a time of intense political polarization. Having a Board of Elections that is controlled by one party only sows distrust in our elections and we must find a new approach to quell concerns that cast doubt on the fairness of our elections.”

Republicans, led by former President Donald Trump and followed by GOP legislators who push for voters presenting photo IDs, ending the grace period for properly postmarked mail-in ballots and restricting same-day registration are the ones who sow distrust in our elections. Now they want to restore that trust by putting themselves in charge of the process.

Somehow, that’s not reassuring.

The truth is that North Carolina has a remarkable record of conducting fair and accurate elections. When Cheri Beasley lost her 2020 race for chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, the margin was 401 votes out of more than 5.5 million cast. The 2016 governor’s race also was extremely tight. In both cases both parties pored over the results and found them to be accurate.

Last time, the courts saved voters from a legislative grab to control elections and decide those that are closely contested. But the state Supreme Court is now deferential to the Republican-controlled legislature.

Now this spoof is serious. There’s a real danger that the “No Partisan Advantage in Elections” bill is about to give Republicans a greater partisan advantage in elections.

This story was originally published June 14, 2023 at 4:30 AM with the headline "The big lie behind the NC’s ‘No Partisan Advantage’ elections bill | Opinion."