North Carolina’s auditor has given the state’s elections board a GOP majority just one day after an appeals court paused a ruling that had blocked him from doing so, in a messy tug-of-war for power that could affect the state’s undecided Supreme Court race.
State auditor Dave Boliek, a Republican, appointed three fellow Republicans to the five-member board Thursday and two Democrats. He was able to do so after a court ruling that temporarily greenlit shifting the power of appointing members of state and county election boards from the governor to the auditor.
The elections board’s political makeup could have major consequences for elections in the state — including the outcome of North Carolina’s Supreme Court race, in which Republican Jefferson Griffin, who narrowly lost to Democrat Allison Riggs, is contesting thousands of ballots. In that particular race, as The New York Times pointed out, a Republican majority “could interpret court rulings more favorably for the challenger, raising the chances of the election being overturned.”
The elections board’s political makeup could have major consequences for elections in the state.
Boliek’s ability to appoint members of the elections board — which the state’s Democratic Party chair has called “an abuse of power and a disservice to the people of North Carolina” — is new. After the November election, Republicans pushed through a bill to consolidate their power before they lost their supermajority in the state House. Among other things, the bill allowed the state auditor, rather than the governor, to appoint election board members.
Then-Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, vetoed the bill, but Republicans overrode his veto. “It’s really one of the more blatant partisan power grabs for authority over elections that we’ve seen in recent years,” Megan Bellamy, vice president for law and policy at the Voting Rights Lab, told The Washington Post at the time. Democrat Josh Stein, who won the North Carolina governor’s race in November, subsequently sued over the measure. A court blocked the change last week, but a GOP-majority appeals court paused that ruling on Wednesday, allowing Boliek the chance to make his appointments — which he swiftly did the following day.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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