Defending Democracy: The Latest Threat to Your Vote

The NC General Assembly has adopted HB 958, a package of changes designed to make it easier to throw voters off the voting rolls, and easier for losing politicians to challenge the results after the election. The bill has gone to the governor’s office to be signed or vetoed.

Among other changes, the adopted bill would:

• Shorten the early voting period for most elections.
• Mandate the use of a highly flawed federal database to purge registered voters from the rolls.
• Allow losing candidates to make targeted challenges of ballots cast during early voting and by mail for three days after the election.
• Direct Republican State Auditor Dave Boliek to conduct random audits of county voting after the election results are certified. 

Critics of the legislation point out that the newly mandated purges “could disenfranchise legitimate voters, by relying on faulty data and including no additional due process right for those targeted.” 

Rep. Phil Rubin (D-Wake) called the extended post-election vote challenges “the Griffin Rule, where you can actually wait to see the preliminary results of an election, see if maybe you need to get some changes made.” Rubin was referring to losing Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin’s months-long effort in 2024 to get selected votes thrown out after the election. 

Governor Josh Stein has already announced his intention to veto the bill, which passed on partly-line votes. “I will veto House Bill 958 because it makes it harder for you to vote, introduces unnecessary chaos into our elections, and invites sore losers to try to overturn an election they lost,” he said.  

Tell Your Lawmakers to Protect Your Vote

States Ask SCOTUS to Block Trump Executive Order

At the national level, North Carolina is one of 23 states (and the District of Columbia) who told the U.S. Supreme Court last week that it should continue a lower-court order blocking a Trump executive order restricting mail-in voting. The states say that the Trump order is plainly unconstitutional, since only states and Congress can set voting rules, not the president. They also point out that attempting to make sweeping changes to voting rules and voter rolls in all 50 states less than 100 days before Election Day would create chaos in the election process.

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