North Carolina’s elections board has wrapped up work resolving how early in-person voting will occur this fall in counties containing half of the state’s registered voters while trying to comply with a federal court ruling that demanded more early voting days.
Advertisement
Elections officials felt the pressure: Randolph County Board of Elections Chairman Bill McAnulty, a Republican, said he “got accused of being a traitor and everything else by the Republican Party” for supporting expanded early voting hours. But the rest of the board wasn’t buying it. Sunday voting – which the county had in 2008 and 2012 – was ultimately restored in a 4-1 vote.
But Earls and the Democrats and voting rights lawyers said they were disappointed the board failed to expand Sunday voting to more counties and provide even more sites to handle expected massive numbers of early voters in Charlotte and surrounding Mecklenburg County, home to 10 percent of the state’s electorate. “The appeals court specifically noted that Sunday voting is popular with black voters and with predominantly black churches that operate souls to the polls” efforts.
Board members debated before a standing-room only crowd Thursday while working their way through contested plans covering 33 of the state’s 100 counties.
The Orange County Board of Elections sent all four options to the state board on August 25.
The judges said Republican legislators had acted with discriminatory intent against black voters in an effort to depress Democratic turnout by passing rules with “almost surgical precision”.
Cox’s plan also included five early voting sites other than the Orange County Board of Elections, which is one more than the majority plan called for. In most cases, board members weighed competing Democratic and Republican proposals from local election boards approved last month with differing early voting dates, hours and locations. “When a legislature dominated by one party has dismantled barriers to African-American access to the franchise, even if done to gain votes, “politics as usual” does not allow a legislature dominated by the other party to re-erect those barriers”. One voided provision limited early in-person voting to 10 days. When asked how the county board’s two Republicans justified rolling back Sunday voting, Hawkins said, “Both of the Republicans are southern Baptist preachers”. “Putting less hours at the beginning would give us more time to verify voters”.
“The staff, the candidates and the volunteers for the candidates need a break”, said Toni Reece, the Rockingham County board chairwoman. Black voters also disproportionately use early voting. “There are people who enjoy their Sundays with their church and their families”. Republicans on the local Wake board had wanted only a single site during the first week of early voting in downtown Raleigh – a logistical nightmare counter to the 4th Circuit ruling, according to critics. Still, the lawyers who sued to overturn the 2013 law said they were prepared to return to court if the state doesn’t rewrite the most onerous plans.
Advertisement
“I’m sorry that it’s turned into such a political issue”, Baker said.
