Last week, North Carolina Governor Josh Stein vetoed House Bill 958, a Republican-sponsored bill that would have reduced the early voting period among other controversial measures.
“Our right to vote is precious. It’s the fundamental right that underpins every other right that we possess, […] That’s why I will always protect you and your right to vote, and that’s why I am vetoing this anti-voter law today,” stated Governor Josh Stein about the bill.
At a “Protect Our Vote” press event, Stein was joined by chamber minority leaders Senator Sydney Batch and Representative Robert Reives, as well as Rev. James Gailliard and North Carolina A&T student Shia Rozier, as he vetoed House Bill 958: Election Law Changes.
House Bill 958 makes various changes to North Carolina’s laws regarding the way elections are run. The bill was filed by former State House Representative Sarah Stevens, a Republican, before she left the House of Representatives to focus on her campaign for the North Carolina Supreme Court.
The bill further increases the State Auditor’s involvement in elections by calling on Republican Auditor Dave Boliek to complete post-election audits on randomly selected counties. This comes as Dallas Woodhouse, the now-former elections liaison for Boliek, has been in the news for his over-involvement in county boards deciding early voting plans. Texts obtained through public record requests show Woodhouse telling county board members how to vote on early voting plans– from removing Sunday voting to removing polling sites at universities.
Additionally, the bill makes it so North Carolina voters have less time to vote, reducing the state’s early voting period for primary elections from 17 days to 10 days. This year, the state saw over 200,000 North Carolinians exercise their right to vote in just the first week of early voting for the primary election.
Gov. Stein spoke against the provision of the bill that would allow for challenges of mail-in ballots up to the third day after Election Day. Stein said this provision “invites sore losers to try to overturn general elections by throwing out people’s votes after the race is over.”
State Republicans say the bill brings much-needed changes to elections in the state. However, Republicans’ track record on election integrity is bleak, as North Carolina Republicans have redrawn maps to favor their own party, took power away from Democratic officials elected by the people, and tried to change the rules of elections once they lost their races.
“This bill was never about election security,” said Batch. “It is about a party that is scared of its own voters. Luckily, there are still elected officials still willing to work hard for you. That is what our fight on the floor was, and that is what this veto is.”
Though the General Assembly has signaled that they don’t plan to take votes anymore until after the general election, House Republicans plan to override the veto, according to Representative Hugh Blackwell, a Republican who serves as the chair of the House Election Law Committee.
Batch and others at the event called on legislators to sustain Stein’s veto.
“This is a party scared of its own voters,” Batch said. “Now Republicans face a choice: Side with the voters in North Carolina who have already asked for fair and free elections, or override the governor’s veto in yet another disingenuous effort to maintain political power.”
Stein’s veto message called the bill a “direct attack on voter access”.
Voting rights activists see this bill as yet another instance of Republicans attempting to restrict voter access in this year alone. Many of the Republican county boards of elections have cut voting hours or locations, with students being impacted by the removal of polling locations at universities.
Shia Rozier was part of the fight to get a polling location at her university, N.C. A&T State University, the nation’s largest HBCU. The state board of elections rejected the polling place for the primary election and, just recently, as they decided the fate of 20 counties’ early voting plans, again rejected the site for the upcoming general election.
“Access to the polls is not a political issue, and democracy is something that we should be excited for, not something that we are continuously fighting for access to,” said Rozier.
