Democratic lawmakers and voting-access advocates gathered outside the North Carolina General Assembly Thursday, days after the Republican-led state legislature voted to cut early voting hours in some elections, ramp up purges of voting rolls and make other changes to election laws.
Supporters of the Republican-backed House Bill 958 say the legislation would improve election integrity and reduce the cost of administration.
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Opponents, including Democrats and voting groups such as the North Carolina Voter Protection Alliance and C.A.R.E. argue it would restrict access to the ballot and weaken public trust in elections.
The groups held the press conference Thursday to mark the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 becoming law, and to highlight concerns about voting access in North Carolina.
“At the end of the day, people deserve a chance to get heard,” state Sen. Val Applewhite, D-Cumberland said at the press conference.
The bill would shorten the primary election early voting period from 17 days to 10 days in primary elections, require Republican State Auditor Dave Boliek to audit elections, ramp up efforts to purge potentially ineligible voters from the rolls and change campaign finance disclosure rules, among other changes.
The GOP-supported bill passed the House this week along party lines, following a party-line approval in the Senate last month.
House Speaker Destin Hall says the effort, including other provisions in the bill, would help boost trust in elections. And he said that the shorter early-voting period would save counties money. He contends that North Carolinians can easily vote in the state.
“The reality is nobody has a difficult time voting in this state,” Hall told reporters this week. “... It's not a hard thing to do to get registered. It's not a hard thing to do to get to the polls. We've got three weeks of early voting in the general election. In the primary, we're reducing that time because so few people utilize the entire three weeks.”
It now heads to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein, who has vowed to veto it, arguing it would make voting harder and create uncertainty in elections.
“I will always defend your right to vote,” Stein said in a social media post. “[The bill] makes it harder for you to vote, introduces unnecessary chaos into our elections and invites sore losers to try to overturn an election they lost.”
The bill would also create a longer period for political campaigns or others to challenge ballots cast during early voting, and try to have them thrown out. It wouldn’t do the same for ballots cast on Election Day.
Traditionally Republicans are more likely to vote on Election Day, while Democrats are more likely to vote during early voting.
Hall said lawmakers likely won’t return to session until after the November elections, at which point they could try overriding Stein’s veto. State lawmakers are banned from accepting many types of campaign donations while the legislature is in session, so the break for the rest of the summer will allow lawmakers to raise money and hit the campaign trail with the election now less than three months away.
Cuts to early voting
Early voting is the most popular way to vote in North Carolina, where less than half of ballots are cast on Election Day itself. Republicans have long sought to reduce the availability of early voting — particularly on Sundays, which is disproportionately popular with Black voters who lean heavily Democratic.
Although critics said cutting early voting will cause longer lines to vote, Hall questioned that logic. He told reporters Wednesday that since the bill targets only low-turnout elections like primaries, voters would still have enough time to cast ballots.
“People generally don’t use most of those days, and obviously primaries are lower turnout,” Hall said. “Reducing that still gives more than enough time for folks to vote.”
Supporters of the change say a shorter early voting period would ease staffing and cost pressures for counties. Many county election officials have said managing 17 days of early voting can be difficult, especially for smaller counties.
“Getting people to take 17 days off has been a challenge,” Olivia McCall, director of the Wake County Board of Elections, told WRAL in May.
The State Board of Elections said some smaller counties in particular support reducing the number of early voting days because of limited staff.
“Some counties have two or three staff members, and that’s it, so it’s hard for them,” said Jason Tyson, a spokesperson for the State Board of Elections.
Opponents of the bill argue fewer early voting days could create barriers for rural voters, workers and military members overseas.
Sen. Val Applewhite, D-Cumberland, said primary elections are often decisive in North Carolina and reducing early voting could limit participation. For nearly all of the 170 state legislative seats, as well as for nearly all of the state’s 14 U.S. House of Representatives seats, the general election isn’t competitive and the true contest is the primary election.
“Reducing early voting days does not make sense when primaries are often where decisions are made in North Carolina,” Applewhite said at the news conference on Thursday.
Rep. Robert Reives, D-Chatham, said lawmakers should provide counties with more resources instead of reducing early voting.
“It’s our job as lawmakers to do that,” said Reives, the House Democratic leader.