A team of former federal special agents with a rich background investigating public corruption and fraud will dig through documents and interview members of Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration to determine whether his $57.8 million Atlantic Coast Pipeline discretionary fund was a political pay-to-play scheme. “This matter is not a criminal matter so far as we...
Who is Doug Heyl? Members of a special legislative committee looking into the Atlantic Coast Pipeline would like to know. Heyl is a top communications official in the state Department of Environmental Quality. But what role did Heyl play in the pipeline permitting process? Sen. Paul Newton, R-Cabarrus, flashed a PowerPoint presentation during a meeting...
Republican lawmakers unveiled a new bill at a Tuesday, Dec. 11 news conference which would return the Bipartisan Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement to two separate boards after years of court battles over the merger. And then they made a major change while the bill was in committee. Sponsors initially included a controversial provision...
A “systematic failure of the election process” may warrant a new election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, N.C. Republican Party Chairman Robin Hayes says. The Bipartisan State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement must assume control over the Bladen County Board of Elections’ operations if a new election is held, Hayes said in a...
Joshua Malcolm, chairman of the Bipartisan State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement, Monday asked a panel of Superior Court judges to keep the board in place until it completes an investigation of alleged irregularities in the 9th U.S. Congressional District race. Widespread reports of absentee ballot irregularities and potential “ballot harvesting” have cast doubt...
After months of meeting across the state, the House Select Committee on School Safety met for the final time Thursday to approve another round of recommendations to make schools safer. The school safety committee was formed in the wake of the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which left...
Election irregularities have been an open secret in Bladen County for most of this decade. A group of Republican senators frustrated with lax enforcement, including law enforcement investigations that seem to be going nowhere, say cleaning up the mess is essential to restore public confidence in election integrity. To root out election abuses and fraud,...
N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Martin named a three-judge Superior Court panel to hear the Common Cause v. David Lewis redistricting challenge. In the order, dated Nov. 27 but released Thursday, Dec. 6, Martin appointed Democrats Paul Ridgeway (Wake County), Alma Hinton (Halifax County), and Republican Joseph Crosswhite (Iredell and Alexander counties). The same...
Too broad. Too narrow. Too lenient. Too stringent. These descriptors were tossed around the N.C. House floor during a Dec. 5 debate over a bill which codifies a new constitutional amendment requiring voters to present photo identification at the ballot box. Fifty-five percent of North Carolina voters on Nov. 6 affirmed a legislative proposal to...
After several court battles and a failed constitutional amendment, the Bipartisan Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement may once again become separate boards. Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett on Monday, Dec. 3, introduced House Bill 1117, which would reconfigure and split the Bipartisan Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement. The Bipartisan Board of Elections and Ethics...
A bill to satisfy North Carolina’s new constitutional amendment requiring photo identification for voters is too broad, allowing multiple forms of voter identification that could gum up the system and encourage voter fraud, some Republican legislators say. Senate Bill 824, Implementation of Voter I.D. Constitutional Amendment, includes, among other things, provisions which would allow community...
