After a series of stops and starts, a wide-ranging elections bill finally made it through the North Carolina House on Wednesday.
The so-called omnibus bill, which includes scores of election changes, passed along party lines.
While the original version of House Bill 958 was filed last year, sponsor Rep. Hugh Blackwell, R-Burke, has repeatedly called it a “work in progress.” Over the past month or so, he’s worked closely with a group of House Democrats, including Reps. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, and Phil Rubin, D-Wake, to iron out some key disagreements in the elections bill.
That’s led to several delays as legislators speed toward the end of this year’s legislative session. Harrison said they’ve been asking for more time to negotiate. As it stands now, they’ve secured a few wins. But it wasn’t enough to earn Democratic support.
“The question that this body has to ask is whether this bill will protect the right to vote or restrict it, and because the answer to that question is the latter, I must stand against the bill,” Rubin said.
Extending deadlines
Democrats wholeheartedly supported one part of the elections bill, which extends deadlines for county election staff to count absentee ballots and for voters to cure, or fix, any issues with provisional ballots or same day voter registration forms.
Until a few years ago, these deadlines were the day before the county canvass, the meeting held 10 days after the election when official results are tallied. But in late 2024, lawmakers passed a law shortening the deadline to the Friday after the election.
This proved to be a nearly impossible task, particularly for election staff in larger counties. The omnibus extends the deadline a few days, to the fifth business day after Election Day.
Key changes in elections bill
Elections bill drafters have changed or removed several of the more controversial aspects of the omnibus in recent weeks.
Three sections were completely removed. One would have barred paying people to gather petition signatures. The second outlined disclosure rules for using artificial intelligence in campaign materials. The third preemptively banned ranked choice voting, which does not happen anywhere in the state.
County and state election boards
A previous version of the elections bill banned county and state election board members from making public statements encouraging turnout in any election, which some found too vague or contrary to their role as election administrators.
The latest version removes that ban, as well as limitations on board member speech supporting or opposing any political party over another. Harrison said they couldn’t come to an agreement on the right language, so they decided to remove the entire section.
In a June 24 House Rules committee, Blackwell said they were trying to protect board members’ First Amendment freedom of speech.
“We maybe had gone too far,” he said.
There were a few additional changes to State Board of Election matters.
The elections bill allows the state board to hire private counsel instead of using the attorney general’s help. Under a previous version of the bill, the State Board could keep communications and documents produced while working with private counsel out of the public’s eye by exempting them from public records law. That exemption was removed.
Another part of the bill drops the number of employees that can be “exempt” from state law forbidding political hires from 25 to seven at the state board. However, the budget would give the State Board 14 exempt employees.
SBE Executive Director Sam Hayes previously told Carolina Public Press the flexibility of exempt employees would help him to quickly fill out senior leadership positions without jumping through as many hoops.
On the House floor, Blackwell presented an amendment that would make it a misdemeanor if someone makes noise outside of a voting place with “intent to disrupt or disturb voting or other election-related activities” other than in emergencies.
This is similar to a State Board proposed rule change targeting noise outside voting sites. While some election officials want to avoid any distractions for voters inside the polling place, some election activists are concerned that the rule would threaten popular events that attempt to get people excited about voting using music and speakers outside polling sites.
Rubin said the addition would restrict people’s rights.
“Democracy is noisy,” he said. “That is a fact about democracy. It is messy, and it is noisy, and our First Amendment rights protect that and they enshrine that.”
The auditor
State Auditor Dave Boliek now oversees North Carolina elections after a 2024 law change shifting election appointment power from the governor to the state auditor. A section of the omnibus draws on that oversight by granting him the ability to conduct a post-election audit after the election is certified. His findings would not change any election results under the current elections bill.
In a previous version, Boliek would have had complete discretion over which counties to audit; in the newest version, he must randomly select them. Every county must be audited at least once every six years. He still would be able to decide how many audits he performs each year.
“It’s really more of an evaluation or an assessment of how well the process works and where we can make improvements,” Blackwell said during a legislative committee.
Democrats have questioned adding more to the auditor’s workload, but Blackwell said that Boliek asked for this law change. State senators also seem to like the idea, since they put it in their own, separate bill.
Overseas and military voters
The omnibus elections bill instates a photo ID requirement for overseas and military voters, which was not in place before for that specific community.
At first, the list of acceptable photo IDs for overseas and military voters was more limited than the list for other voters. Blackwell said some forms of ID that make sense for voters inside the US might not be as “appropriate” for overseas and military voters, like college student IDs. However, after negotiations, Blackwell agreed to expand the acceptable photo IDs to the full list.
He also removed a requirement for these voters to provide documentation to prove their previous US residency, which could include an old utility bill, paycheck or government document. Military and overseas voters who need to fix certain ballot errors will have until 11 a.m. on the county canvass day, 10 days after the election, to turn it in.
Voter registration
The elections bill attempts to crack down on voter registration mistakes at the Division of Motor Vehicles and other agencies, which sometimes accidentally register a non-US citizen to vote. It requires these registration agencies not to register those who do not “affirmatively state” that they are citizens. If they say no or do not reply, the agency staff should not register them to vote.
If county election boards receive a voter registration application that indicates the applicant is not a US citizen or does not include a reply to that application question, they also cannot register that person.
The latest elections bill includes an appeal process for people who register to vote but are denied because the election board isn’t sure whether they are US citizens or for when their address verification fails. These applicants have five days from the time they receive notice of their denial to appeal, which will lead to a public hearing.
After someone registers to vote, their county election board sends them non-forwardable mail to verify whether they live at the address stated on their registration application. If the first mailing returns as undeliverable, they send another one. Only after the second undeliverable mailing may the voter be removed from the voter rolls.
However, in cases when an election happens before that process is complete, the omnibus clarifies how to treat voters at various stages of the process.
If the county election board initially determined the registrant was qualified to vote, they will be able to vote in person unless the US Postal Service returns two mailed notices as undeliverable.
If the US Postal Service has returned one mailing as undeliverable that was sent within 25 days of an election, then the voter may only vote in person, and election staff will get their correct address at the voting site.
If a mailing returns as undeliverable after a recent registrant already voted, the county board will treat them as a registered voter, but continue with the mail verification process, and remove or keep them on the voter rolls based on the results. If a mailing returns as undeliverable after a voter casts an absentee ballot, specifically, that ballot could be challenged.
Democrats say elections bill good, not good enough
While several Democratic lawmakers lauded Blackwell for making requested changes, it ultimately wasn’t enough to earn many of their votes.
During debate, Rep. Amos Quick, D-Guilford, said voters deserve “normalcy and predictability” when navigating elections, but haven’t gotten it due to recent years of legislative “tinkering.”
“Since 2018, this body has continued to rely on false narratives and boogeyman-form politics to make voters unsettled and to restrict access to the ballot box,” he said.
Even some lawmakers who sometimes vote with Republicans expressed some level of opposition during earlier discussions.
Rep. Shelly Willingham, D-Edgecombe, originally supported the elections bill, but changed tune last week after receiving calls from constituents in the military, who said the bill’s requirements were too onerous. He said he was “moved” by their pleas. Rep. Carla Cunningham, U-Mecklenburg, and Rep. Tricia Cotham, R-Mecklenburg, voted against the bill in a legislative committee.
On the House floor, Cotham voted for the bill while Willingham and Cunningham remained nos.
Since House Republicans are one seat short of a supermajority that can override the governor’s veto, losing these swing lawmakers’ support may be an early sign of the bill’s demise.
Next, House Bill 958 goes to the Senate, which has a few options. State senators might amend the bill with their own changes, or they could bring it to a vote as-is. They could also choose to let the bill die.
Even if the omnibus elections bill dies, provisions that the Senate likes could reappear in different bills.
Omnibus elections bill part of pattern
On a recent afternoon, about 150 people milled around the lawn behind the legislative building, fanning themselves in the 90 degree heat. Around 5 p.m. on June 22, a series of voting activists spoke to the crowd about House Bill 958 and other recent election controversies, including the exclusion of on-campus early voting sites in a few counties due to outside pressures and other proposed legislative changes.
“People, HB 958 is not an isolated event; it’s part of a broader pattern that we’ve been watching unfold for years,” Brava NC executive director Iliana Santillan said. “A pattern that asks voters to clear more hurdles, a pattern that treats participation as suspicious instead of valuable, a pattern that chips away at trust in the very institutions that democracy depends on.”
Throughout the two-hour event, speakers recruited attendees to sign up as voter protection volunteers. Their goal was 100: one for each county. They got at least 74 people to sign up.
It’s more important than ever to pay attention and participate, said Hilary Klein, Southern Coalition for Social Justice senior counsel for voting rights.
“I have witnessed communities rise up to oppose these anti-democratic tactics, and it is working,” she said. “So, this is your chance to make your voice heard, to advocate for free and fair elections.”
Students at Western Carolina University did just that after losing their longstanding early voting campus site during the primary elections. The site consistently ranked as the site in the state with the highest proportion of same-day registrant voters.
WCU College Democrats President Seth Digh was part of a group that walked to the closest early voting site in February — a 1.53 mile trek along the side of a four-lane highway with no sidewalks, street lights or guardrails.
“A big part of our march to the polls back in February was, ‘Hey, they put the polling site in this break room in Jackson County Recreation Center. Let’s get so many people that the poll workers are gonna hate us for a couple hours,’” he said.
“We’re gonna flood it so it is abundantly clear that that does not work — that the volume of voters, even in an early voting for a primary before a general election, that a break room is not going to handle the amount of voters.”
While the fate of early voting in Jackson County and the omnibus elections bill are still unknown, Emancipate NC Executive Director Dawn Blagrove hopes that recent “attacks on our right to vote” from the Supreme Court to North Carolina are a positive sign.
“Why are we seeing this?” she asked. “… Because they are afraid. Why? Because we are winning. It is always darkest before the dawn, but we are so close.”
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