Election Integrity Enforcement Turns Page On Partisan Management In NC

The future bodes well for election integrity in North Carolina. Innovative Republicans fixed the problematic Board of Elections (BOE), while the Justice Department is breathing down its neck to fix the problems its former Democrat members created.

Over the past five years, the Democrat-controlled BOE usurped the legislature’s authority, ignored federal election law, and discriminated against Republican-majority counties rather than act as “independent state agency charged with the administration of the elections process and campaign finance disclosure and compliance,” as state law prescribes.

Last year, the Republican-controlled legislature passed a much-needed election law over outgoing Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) veto, which—among other reforms—removed BOE appointment authority from the governor to the state auditor. Newly elected Auditor Dave Boliek (R) replaced four of the five former BOE members, and the new Republican majority appointed former libertarian think tank leader Francis De Luca as its chairman.

In May, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the state and the BOE for failing to maintain an accurate voter roll and verify citizenship information in accordance with the Help America Vote Act of 2002. This followed the unsuccessful attempt by Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin (R) to challenge over 60,000 possibly fraudulent votes from people who didn’t provide either the last four digits of their Social Security numbers or driver’s license number. Griffin lost his election to incumbent Justice Allison Riggs (D) by less than 800 votes.

In response, the BOE’s new Executive Director Sam Hayes stated, “The failure to collect the information required by HAVA has been well documented. Rest assured that I am committed to bringing North Carolina into compliance with federal law.”