A protester attends a rally for Democratic Associate Justice Allison Riggs in Raleigh, North Carolina, on April 14.Makiya Seminera/AP
Two weeks after the November 2024 election, the Republican-controlled legislature in North Carolina convened a lame-duck session for the ostensible purpose of passing a hurricane relief bill. But, with no public notice, they snuck provisions into the bill stripping power from the state’s incoming Democratic governor and attorney general and drastically changing how elections were administered.
Most notably, the bill prevented North Carolina’s incoming Democratic governor, Josh Stein, from appointing a majority of members on the state election board and 100 county election boards and transferred that authority to the state auditor, who, for the first time in more than a decade, was a Republican. Democrats and voting rights experts warned at the time that the bill could allow Republicans to overturn Democratic victories by refusing to certify election results and tilting the rules to favor the GOP.
“We are very concerned that some of the appointees to the newly appointed board of elections have a history of anti-voter positions on election law and redistricting issues.”
That chilling hypothetical is now much closer to becoming a reality, after a ruling on Wednesday by the GOP-controlled state court of appeals cleared the way for Republicans appointed by the auditor to take over the state election board effective May 1—at the very moment the board finds itself at the center of an unprecedented legal dispute over the Republican attempt to steal a state Supreme Court race.
Under Democratic control, the state board has objected to the efforts by Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin to throw out tens of thousands of votes and overturn the election of Democratic Justice Allison Riggs, who leads by 734 votes after two recounts, in the last uncertified contest from November.
Griffin is currently challenging more than 5,000 ballots cast by overseas and military voters in six Democratic-leaning counties that voted for Kamala Harris in November, specifically contesting voters who did not provide photo ID from overseas, even though that was not required at the time. Riggs and election law experts say this is a clear equal protection violation, since Griffin is only contesting ballots cast in heavily Democratic areas. If the courts discard those ballots, Griffin has said he will win the election. But the state board has told the courts his challenge applies to only 1,600 ballots in Greensboro’s Guilford County because the other challenges were filed too late, which would make it much tougher for Griffin to overturn the result.
However, if the board, under Republican control, reversed its position and sided with Griffin, it could potentially disqualify enough Democratic votes to swing the election. The board could also fail to properly reach out to voters whose ballots Griffin is challenging in a way that leads to more voter disenfranchisement.
“I fear that this decision is the latest step in the partisan effort to steal a seat on the Supreme Court,” Gov. Stein said in a statement after the appeals court issued its one-sentence, unsigned order on Wednesday. “No emergency exists that can justify the Court of Appeals’ decision to interject itself at this point. The only plausible explanation is to permit the Republican State Auditor to appoint a new State Board of Elections that will try to overturn the results of the Supreme Court race.”
Stein has appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court, which has a 5–2 Republican majority.
The Trump-backed auditor, Dave Boliek, has no experience running elections and under the law North Carolina would be the only state in the country where the auditor oversees election administration. On Thursday, within hours of the law taking effect, he appointed three board members to give Republicans a majority: Francis De Luca, former president of the right-wing Civitas Institute, which is funded by conservative billionaire Art Pope; former GOP state Sen. Bob Rucho, author of a notorious pro-Republican gerrymander; and current GOP board member Stacy Eggers. De Luca’s group filed a lawsuit against the state board challenging the results of the 2016 gubernatorial election, where Republican Pat McCrory narrowly lost to Democrat Roy Cooper, attempting to throw out thousands of votes cast during the same-day registration process.
“We are very concerned that some of the appointees to the newly appointed board of elections have a history of anti-voter positions on election law and redistricting issues,” says Ann Webb, policy director for Common Cause North Carolina.
“They’re setting up a board that looks like it’s going to do very partisan, nefarious actions,” adds Melissa Price Kromm, executive director of North Carolina for the People Action, a pro-democracy group. “They’re moving very quickly because they see a pathway to steal the North Carolina Supreme Court seat.”
