State board members, reviewing the voting patterns of Robeson County residents, chose to shift some of those hours to the end of the early voting period, when more people tend to vote.
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“It was a positive day for voters”, Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina, a voting reform group, said Friday about actions by the State Board of Elections the day before. While Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two-to-one in that county, Mitt Romney still won the vote by 2% back in 2012.
The concern is that the majority of these states have a predominantly black community – Bertie County is 62% black, and that county had its early voting hours cut by 117 this year.
Voting in the 2016 election is getting underway.
Dave Miranda, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party, told the outlet: “We’re disappointed so many counties have reduced early voting hours”.
The state’s Republican-controlled Board of Elections deliberated for 11 hours through disputed plans for early in-person voting from one-third of North Carolina’s 100 counties before approving or amending them Thursday. Now it’s back to 17. One voided provision limited early in-person voting to 10 days. Now there will be four. The board also found bipartisan agreement on other plans to expand the cumulative hours of early voting, especially in growing urban areas such as around Raleigh and Charlotte. Polls show a tight race between Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, and there are also close races for governor and Sen.
For Mecklenburg County, the board agreed to increase the number of early voting sites from six to 10. Overall, the plan reduces early voting hours by 348 in the 2012 election to to 323 hours. But Democrats on the board argued all 22 sites were needed for the entire period in the state’s largest county.
State Board Chairman Grant Whitney, a Republican, declined to speak with reporters Thursday night after the meeting.
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“I was very glad to see that some of the most egregious problems were corrected”, said Anita Earls with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, whose group sued over the 2013 law.
