This past May, a Canadian national, Denis Bouchard, was sentenced to serve time in federal prison for illegally registering and voting in North Carolina. He’d lived in the US since the 1960s but never became a citizen. Prosecutors alleged he’d been voting in New Hanover and Pender County elections for 20 years. Stories like these demonstrate that North Carolina elections laws need to be stronger.
Thankfully, last week the North Carolina General Assembly passed two of the most sweeping elections bills in recent history. Those bills (HB958 and HB834) will help to ensure that the law gives every eligible voter the right and ability to cast a ballot and to ensure that the votes cast will be counted accurately.
North Carolina’s current election law has several notable gaps. One major issue is the lack of clear rules allowing voters to “cure” problems with their ballots — such as missing signatures or required documentation — so that their legitimate votes can still be counted.
The law also falls short when it comes to administrative processes. There’s no requirement for the State Board to send voter registrations collected during registration drives to county boards in a timely fashion. Similarly, no deadline exists for the state board to notify county boards when a registered voter has died, and there’s no established process for removing ineligible voters from the rolls when a federal agency provides that information.
Several other safeguards are missing. Current law doesn’t include protections to prevent non-citizens from registering to vote through the DMV or at boards of elections. There’s also no legal requirement to confirm that a person hand-delivering someone else’s ballot is either the voter themselves or a close relative, which leaves open the possibility of ballot harvesting.
Finally, a holdover policy from the previous, Democrat-controlled State Board of Elections currently requires that Early Voting tabulators — which hold the only record of votes cast during the early voting period — remain open until 7:30pm on Election Day.
The bills, passed by the NC House and Senate and now awaiting signature or veto from Gov. Josh Stein, solve these problems. One key change would give voters more time and clearer procedures to “cure” problems with their voter registration forms, provisional ballots, or absentee ballots — allowing them to add missing signatures or documentation so their votes count. Alongside this, the state board would be required to send voter registration forms to counties quickly enough to meet the state’s registration deadlines.
The bills would also expand options for challenging and appealing election decisions. County residents would gain the ability to challenge early voting ballots, and petitioners appealing a NC Board of Elections decision could take their case to the NC Superior Court in their own geographic area. To make sure every valid vote is counted accurately, county boards would get two additional business days to finalize vote counts for provisional and cured ballots.
Several provisions focus on voter roll integrity. New processes would be put in place to prevent non-citizens from registering to vote at DMVs or boards of elections, and to remove ineligible voters — including deceased individuals and non-citizens — from the rolls in a timely manner. Related to this, votes cast by someone who dies before Election Day would be removed from the count.
To guard against ballot tampering, anyone hand-delivering an absentee ballot on someone else’s behalf would be required to sign an affidavit confirming they are a near relative of the voter, addressing concerns about ballot harvesting.
Finally, the bills would tighten procedures around early voting tabulators, requiring them to be closed at the end of the early voting period with ballots and digital vote logs properly secured. Early voting would remain at 17 days for general elections but would be shortened to 10 days for primaries, second primaries, and municipal elections — a change intended to save counties money and staffing resources during periods when early voting turnout tends to be lowest.
In an attempt to derail the bill, a cacophony of protestors descended on the legislature claiming that these bills are rooted in racism and designed to suppress the vote. But these bills have nothing to do with any of that — and many of the protesters would be surprised to learn which party has the sordid history of voter suppression through poll taxes, literacy tests, and white landowner requirements to vote.
In a free nation, a government exists to protect the inalienable rights of man. Governmental power to protect those rights is derived from the consent of the governed. Election laws must ensure that only eligible voters vote and must protect the accuracy of election results. Otherwise, the legitimacy of our nation will, eventually, be destroyed, and our government will no longer have the authority to protect individual rights.
The North Carolina General Assembly has risen to the occasion. Through the efforts of Rep. Hugh Blackwell in the NC House and Sens. Overcash, Hise, and Daniel in the NC Senate, election integrity is protected in North Carolina, contingent on the governor’s signature. If the bills become law, liberty will be secured for every North Carolinian, and we should be grateful for their efforts.
