Judicial Watch: Supremes Will Review Elections Revamp
North Carolina’s highest state court has determined that it is time for it to hear and decide the disputes over who will control North Carolina’s elections.
The North Carolina Supreme Court will hear in August the Governor’s challenge to the General Assembly’s attempted overhaul of the state’s public elections mechanism, by-passing further delays in the lower courts. In the meantime, the Court has put any further changes or new appointments within the system on hold.
The ongoing dispute over who will oversee North Carolina elections, and under what rules, has been raging since the General Assembly acted last December to strip incoming Governor Cooper of the governor’s historic role in appointing majorities of the state and county elections boards. The legislature also sought to ensure that the Republican party would hold the reins of all those boards during presidential election years, regardless of which party held the governor’s office.
First a panel of Superior Court judges, and then a panel of the state Court of Appeals, issued changing rulings on the constitutionality of the law. Last week, the state Supreme Court ordered that the case’s next stop would be with them, and on an accelerated basis.
This conflict needs a concluding resolution soon. Not only is filing for 2018 elections just months away, 2017 municipal election campaigns are already underway in cities and towns across the state.
Conservation advocates are following this dispute with great interest, as its outcome is likely to strongly impact how the state interprets and applies voting rights standards and early voting plans. NCLCV and other citizen involvement advocates strongly support making voting as convenient and accessible as possible for all citizens. Only an aware and involved citizenry can hold elected leaders accountable for their environmental policy decisions.
