Mother Jones: A Massive Power Grab Could Help North Carolina Republicans Steal an Election

[Dennis Donovan]

Mother Jones - A Massive Power Grab Could Help North Carolina Republicans Steal an Election

A new GOP majority on the state election board could overturn a state supreme court race.

Ari Berman
1 hour ago

Two weeks after the November 2024 election, the Republican-controlled legislature in North Carolina convened a lame-duck session for the ostensible purpose of passing a hurricane relief bill. But, with no public notice, they snuck provisions into the bill stripping power from the state’s incoming Democratic governor and attorney general and drastically changing how elections were administered.

Most notably, the bill prevented North Carolina’s incoming Democratic governor, Josh Stein, from appointing a majority of members on the state election board and 100 county election boards and transferred that authority to the state auditor, who, for the first time in more than a decade, was a Republican. Democrats and voting rights experts warned at the time that the bill could allow Republicans to overturn Democratic victories by refusing to certify election results and tilting the rules to favor the GOP.

That chilling hypothetical is now much closer to becoming a reality, after a ruling on Wednesday by the GOP-controlled state court of appeals cleared the way for Republicans appointed by the auditor to take over the state election board effective May 1—at the very moment the board finds itself at the center of an unprecedented legal dispute over the Republican attempt to steal a state supreme court race.

Under Democratic control, the state board has objected to the efforts by Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin to throw out tens of thousands of votes and overturn the election of Democratic Justice Allison Riggs, who leads by 734 votes after two recounts, in the last uncertified contest from November.

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[Passages]

1. Republicans no different and in many ways worse than gangsters.