While a group of lawmakers considered the latest version of a wide-ranging elections omnibus bill, a couple dozen protesters waited outside, holding their phones to their ears to hear what was happening inside the committee room.
When lawmakers dispersed, they held up red flags and booed in disapproval, bringing the spirit of the World Cup to Raleigh.
The 36-page elections omnibus bill, House Bill 958, touches on scores of election issues, including ballot counting deadlines, ranked choice voting and the auditor’s involvement in elections.
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Tuesday’s version tacked on a dozen pages to the last version of the bill, presented in July 2025. Bill sponsor Rep. Hugh Blackwell, R-Burke, emphasized that it was still a “work in progress.” Democratic committee members Reps. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, and Phil Rubin, D-Wake, worked with Blackwell over the weekend on a few changes, he said. There could be more on the way.
For example, he said he wants to find compromise on provisions banning county and state election board members from “encouraging or promoting turnout in any election.”
Rep. Shelly Willingham, D-Edgecombe, voted with Republicans to move the bill forward. He will be a key vote if the bill passes and is ultimately vetoed by the governor.
Blackwell said he expects a House vote as early as Wednesday, but the bill was removed from the House Rules committee Tuesday, so it will likely take longer to reach the floor. The Senate could then approve the bill as is or amend it, which would take more time. The governor would then decide whether to veto the bill, and if he did, it would return for a veto override vote. Lawmakers plan to end this year’s legislative session before the July 4 holiday, so there isn’t much time left.
There was no time for public comment during Tuesday’s committee meeting. Protesters gathered outside the legislative building instead.
One protester, Kathy Martin, called it a “voter suppression bill.” Another, Deborah Oronzio, said the Democrat-suggested changes were positive but not substantive. She felt like Republicans made minor changes just to “keep them calm.”
“I’m not sure that we can pick one thing that has any good in it, and that’s what infuriates me, because they position it like, ‘Oh, this is gonna help us with the integrity of our elections,’ and they don’t want to listen to data,” she said.
Election integrity activist and Lee County election board member Jay DeLancy said he’s very excited about some parts of the bill, but not satisfied with others.
“There’ll never be enough integrity, but that’s why we fight,” he said. “It’s like a tug of war.”
Giving voters, local election boards more time
The first part of the bill loosens certain deadlines lawmakers tightened in late 2024 in a controversial, wide-ranging law touted as a Hurricane Helene recovery bill.
Before the 2024 law passed, county election boards had until the day before county canvass, held 10 days after Election Day, to count absentee and provisional ballots. Voters had the same amount of time to fix certain ballot or registration issues if they, for example, forgot to bring a valid photo ID to the polls and had to vote provisionally.
After the law passed, they had three days to finish the job.
County election staff told Carolina Public Press at the time that the deadlines were impossible to meet without pulling consecutive all-nighters.
Lawmakers listened. The omnibus gives county election boards until the fifth business after Election Day — the following Tuesday — to count absentee and provisional ballots and allow voters to fix their ballots and registrations.
In some cases, boards can take a bit longer. If they have reason to believe a provisional voter’s ballot shouldn’t count, they can wait until the canvass to make a decision. Challenged ballots also might take more time to address.
Instead of shortening the counting process on the back end, bill drafters tried to give county election staff more time to begin counting certain early, absentee and provisional ballots on Election Day, as long as they don’t reveal any results until polls close.
Guilford County Election Director Charlie Collicut said pushing back the deadline to count provisional ballots will be “tremendously helpful for all counties.”
“Their original timeline just did not give us the administrative time that we needed to give quality research and presentation to the boards,” he said.
North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton said the deadline change only fixed a problem lawmakers created for themselves. She would prefer to return to a 10-day period to cure, or fix, ballots that might be missing something.
“It doesn’t surprise me when you just saw Phil Berger lose an election by less than 23 votes, give or take, and he only had three days to go out there and actually try to count ballots and be able to cure ballots in that sense,” she said. “So, I mean, I do think that Republicans understand that some of the laws that they put into place do not benefit them and they’re trying to retroactively change them.”
No encouraging turnout
The latest version of the omnibus would bar county and state election board members from “encouraging or promoting voter turnout in any election.”
This provision isn’t new. While it appeared in an early version of the bill, it was removed in the last 2025 version after criticism that the ban was too vague.
Collicut isn’t sure whether Guilford County Board of Elections members have done anything that would fall under this umbrella, but it’s unclear. Would a board member get into trouble for saying one polling place was better than another because it would likely produce higher turnout during debate? What about if they posted the early voting schedule on the county website or Facebook page?
“It’s just too subjective,” he said. “If they want to restrict some of that, then I think they need to be more specific — what does that mean?”
State Board and county election board business
A series of provisions would impact State Board and county election board business.
One would require the DMV to provide Social Security numbers to the State Board of Elections for list maintenance and voter registration purposes on a monthly schedule.
The State Board would also be allowed to retain private counsel when it gets involved in litigation, and the documents associated with that counsel would not be public record.
Martin said she feels like decision-making will be more opaque as a result.
They are getting 25 positions exempt from certain political neutrality rules, which means Executive Director Sam Hayes could hire people who align with him politically or ideologically.
Another provision would set minimum training standards for poll workers and require University of North Carolina’s School of Government to work with the State Board to develop a county board member training curriculum.
County boards could not count the ballots of voters who died between casting their vote and 11:59 the day before Election Day. This comes after a few Democratic board members got into trouble for counting some votes of dead North Carolinians.
Omnibus dealing with potential noncitizens
The State Board of Elections has started using the federal Systemic Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system to identify potential noncitizens on North Carolina’s voter roll.
Their proposed process for challenging these potential noncitizens, which includes an opportunity for voters to defend their eligibility, is currently in the middle of the rulemaking process and will likely be approved this summer.
The SAVE system is not perfect; it often generates false positives, which worries some election activists who think there is a greater risk of removing eligible voters from the rolls than noncitizens.
The omnibus outlines the voter challenge process when the SAVE system identifies potential noncitizens, or other ineligible voters.
Many of the noncitizens who were improperly registered to vote in the past have said they were confused about their eligibility or unknowingly registered. The bill attempts to fix part of that issue by explicitly requiring officials at the Division of Motor Vehicles or other voter registration agencies to stop processing voter registration applications if, after asking whether the person is a US citizen, they say no or do not answer.
Democracy Out Loud representative Mark Swallow doesn’t like the idea of trying to improve election integrity with unproven tools.
“We know that the SAVE database has its issues, so to base it all on that is wrong, and there’s no transparency on what databases they’re actually using.”
Omnibus could authorize another audit
State Auditor Dave Boliek already appoints State Board members and local county election chairs.
The omnibus bill would give him more oversight after elections are over. After the general election is certified, the auditor would select counties in which to conduct post-election audits.
The auditor’s office could then look into voter roll accuracy, voting equipment, poll book records, ballots and any other areas of concern. The State Board, county election boards and the DMV would be required to provide access to any documents or staff needed to complete an audit.
DeLancy said he’s been asking for an independent audit for years, even when the auditor was a Democrat.
“I’d rather it be someone of the other party doing it, but I like the idea of the board of elections just having somebody looking over their shoulder,” he said.
Blackwell said that the change would not impact election outcomes.
“It’s really more of an evaluation or an assessment of how well the process works and where we can make improvements,” he said.
No more Never Residents
After NC Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin lost the 2024 election, he challenged voters referred to as “Never Residents.”
These people have parents or legal guardians who are US citizens who last resided in North Carolina before moving abroad. While the children have never resided in the country, they automatically have US citizenship. Until 2025, North Carolina elections officials allowed them to vote in state and federal elections using absentee ballots.
During Griffin’s protest, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that Never Residents could not vote in state elections, because they don’t need the Constitution’s residency requirements. But the State Board determined that the ban did not extend to federal elections.
In early June, a Wake County Superior Court ruled in a separate lawsuit that Never Residents could not vote at all in North Carolina, no matter the contest.
The omnibus doubles down on this, explicitly barring Never Residents from voting.
North Carolina military and overseas voters, covered under a special section of the law, also must provide more documentation to vote under the bill.
Currently, they are exempted from the photo ID requirement, but the bill would require them to include a copy of a valid photo ID like an unexpired military ID, passport or North Carolina driver’s license, to vote.
While registering, military and overseas voters also must provide documentation proving their state residency. That could be any document including their previous address, like a utility bill, bank statement, paycheck or other government document.
The State Board will create an electronic portal to submit the documentation.
Loose ends in the omnibus
Some provisions don’t fit into a box.
One would launch a new signature verification pilot program, after current election staff expressed dissatisfaction with the last attempt.
Another would require prospective candidates to be registered with a particular political party for a year before becoming eligible to run in that party’s primary. This is likely due to a spate of Democratic and unaffiliated candidates who switched their party affiliation to Republican to run against them in this year’s legislative primaries. None won.
Ranked choice voting, which has been a practice in some other states, would be preemptively banned under the omnibus bill.
Several campaign finance changes are in the bill, including a crackdown on election influence from foreign corporations or foreign actors and raised reporting thresholds.
Finally, the bill standardizes municipal election dates based on the specific type and method of election.
The goal is to consolidate resources, like poll workers, Blackwell said.
“It may be helpful also with voters having a better understanding of when elections are, if we don’t have various dates that vary, maybe based on other factors,” he said.
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