NC House approves election changes, budget additions over critics’ objections

North Carolina House Republicans on Tuesday approved wide-ranging changes to the conduct of elections, pushing past Democrats’ objections.  

The House approved House Bill 958  in a 62-47 vote, with only Republicans in favor.  

Among other changes, the Senate added a provision that would reduce the early voting period in primaries, run-offs, and special elections from 17 days to 10 days.

Republicans said turnout for those non-general elections is so low it doesn’t justify staffing polling sites for a full early voting period. 

The bill also allows challenges to ballots cast during early voting or by mail for up to three days after an election. People whose voter registrations are canceled because a federal database says they are deceased won’t have the chance to prove that their removal was a mistake. 

“Those databases we know are flawed,” said Rep. Phil Rubin, D-Wake.” We know they list people that are dead who are not dead.”

The lack of due process will lead to lawsuits, he said. “It violates constitutional protections.”

Rubin said the measure also opens the door to strategic ballot challenges.

Candidates who appear to be losing on election night will have time to file strategic challenges in hopes of getting votes thrown out, he said.

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“We could call it the Griffin Rule, where you can actually wait to see the preliminary results of an election, see if maybe you need to get some changes made,” Rubin said, referring to former Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin, who challenged thousands of votes in 2024 in an unsuccessful effort to reverse his loss to Democrat Allison Riggs. 

Loading up so many changes so close to the midterms is too much for voters to absorb, said Rep. Abe Jones, D-Wake. “The public will not have time to digest the changes before the elections take place in early November,” Jones said. 

The session paused briefly while protesters in the gallery, chanting “The people united will never be defeated,” were removed. 

House Bill 834, which focuses on ballot counting and obtaining missing voter signatures, passed with a vote of 74-35. Eleven Democrats and Rep. Carla Cunningham, U-Mecklenburg, voted with all Republicans. 

NC Senate approves controversial elections bill along party lines

The House also approved two small budget bills Republicans presented as corrections to the main state budget the legislature passed last month.

The larger bill, House Bill 268, rescinds some agency personnel cuts, adds millions in sporting events spending, and takes power away from executive branch Democrats. It passed 79-31.

The bill authorizes up to $40 million to secure at least four PGA Tour championship qualifying events for Greensboro. The Wyndham Championship is played each year at the Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro. 

The bill would also spend $25 million on the Military World Games. The games are being held in North and South Carolina. Charlotte is the host for the games.

Rep. Marcia Morey, D-Durham, said that $65 million would be better spent to help Hurricane Helene victims, food banks, or Legal Aid.

“When you’re adding $65 million to an already existing sports program, that is not a technical correction, that is a big gift,” she said. “Let’s look to the people in need in North Carolina, and not the sports industry.”

One provision kicks Secretary of State Elaine Marshall off of a state commission that oversees local government finances. Another would force a governor’s Cabinet appointees out of their jobs if the Senate does not approve them during a two-year legislative session. 

Earlier Tuesday, Gov. Josh Stein told reporters that Republicans are “moving power to their friends” whether or not such moves make sense. 

“It’s all about trying, on a partisan basis, to take power away from Democrats, and it’s wrong,” Stein said.  

He referenced the controversial 2024 law that stripped state Board of Elections appointment powers from his office, giving it to Republican state Auditor Dave Boliek. Boliek hired a former state Republican Party executive director, Dallas Woodhouse, to a newly created job as an elections liaison to the counties. Woodhouse resigned from the office as controversies over his advice to counties on early voting times and locations swirled. 

“Government should be about serving people. What they’re trying to do is just move power to their friends” whether it makes sense for that person to have authority or not, Stein said. 

Asked for comment on Stein’s remarks, House Speaker Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, didn’t disagree, saying only, “We’re taking [appointments] from his friends and giving them to our friends.”

The House also approved a smaller budget bill that includes an appropriation for hyperbaric oxygen therapy and approves an “America’s Semiquincentennial” license plate on a 99-11 vote.