Voting
Why Republican-led states keep leaving a group that verifies voter rolls
Eight Republican-led states this year left an interstate cooperative that seeks to maintain accurate voter registration rolls, and three more may join them — a move that election security experts say is fueled by conspiracy theories. Earlier this month, Virginia’s top election official said the state would become the latest to stop participating in the […]
NC Republicans prohibit the state joining an organization meant to keep voter rolls clean
State House and Senate Republicans agree that North Carolina will not join a multi-state effort to maintain accurate voter rolls. Both chambers included provisions in their budget proposals that prohibit the state from participating in the Electronic Registration Information Center and eliminate what was to be next year’s $35,000 membership fee. Republican states started abandoning […]
The House budgeted for Voter ID. The Senate did not.
In its budget proposal unveiled last month, North Carolina’s House of Representatives budgeted $3.5 million for the State Board of Elections to implement voter ID requirements — before the state Supreme Court even ruled on whether it was constitutional. The Senate released its budget proposal this week. Unlike their House colleagues, however, it did not […]
New NC Board of Elections chairman in place as voter photo ID law is implemented
Alan Hirsch, a former deputy attorney general and policy advisor to former Gov. Mike Easley, is the new chairman of the State Board of Elections. “I know that we will all work together for the benefit of our state and the integrity of the elections process,” Hirsch said Wednesday after the board elected him chairman. […]
NC Supreme Court gerrymandering reversal highlights urgent need for congressional action
In recent years, state courts have been rare bright spots in the fight against gerrymandering, with voters around the country successfully using state constitutions to challenge politically skewed voting maps drawn by both major parties. But growing momentum in state courts took a stumble last week with the deeply troubling decision by the North Carolina Supreme Court to […]
NC Supreme Court upholds law that disenfranchises thousands convicted of felonies
The North Carolina Supreme Court issued a ruling Friday upholding a 1970s law requiring people convicted of felonies to complete the terms of their probation or parole in order to regain their right to vote. The decision — which fell 5-2 along party lines — affects more than 50,000 people. Friday’s majority opinion was written […]
A top GOP lawyer wants to crack down on the college vote. States already are.
A top Republican election lawyer recently caused a stir when she told GOP donors that the party should work to make it harder for college students to vote in key states. But the comments from Cleta Mitchell, who worked closely with then-President Donald Trump to try to overturn the 2020 election, are perhaps less surprising […]
BREAKING: NC Supreme Court sides with GOP lawmakers on elections and voting
The North Carolina Supreme Court issued a group of much-anticipated rulings on Friday in a trio of high-profile cases that will likely have significant impacts on elections and voting rights in the nation’s ninth largest state, and even the partisan make-up of the next U.S. Congress. Together with recent developments at the General Assembly, where […]
Federal agencies lag in registering voters despite Biden executive order, advocates say
Within weeks of taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order — hailed by voter advocates as potentially transformative — that for the first time committed the U.S. government to registering new voters at federal agencies. But just over two years later, most of the 10 agencies examined in a recent report […]
NC House committee approves absentee ballot restrictions
A bill that would make it harder for voters to return absentee ballots in time to have them counted passed a state House committee along party lines Tuesday. The bill would eliminate the three-day grace period for absentee ballots mailed to local boards of elections. Under the current law, those ballots count as long as […]
Literacy tests are still in the North Carolina constitution. Lawmakers want to change that.
Legislators have raised a bill that would repeal the literacy test requirement as a condition to vote in North Carolina, provided voters approve the constitutional amendment in a future election. The use of literacy tests is not enforceable because of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but they are still a part of the North […]
On MLK holiday, a renewed push to address poverty, voting rights: ‘We cannot be silent or unseen.’
Bishop William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, used the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday to demand the president and congressional leadership on both sides of the aisle meet with poor and low-wealth people and religious leaders to address the policy decisions that have held millions of Americans in poverty. “Sadly, many will go […]