State election board approves early voting plans for 80 counties

At their meeting on Thursday, the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) unanimously approved early voting plans for 80 counties in this November’s General Election. All 80 counties plans were unanimous.

The remaining 20 counties that were non unanimous will appear at the NCSBE’s Aug. 20 meeting to present their plans.

The county boards have to meet general requirements, including having uniform locations, dates, and times. Also, if a county board is going to use a site in lieu of their county board office, the site needs to be within reasonable distance, 4 miles or a 10 minute drive, of the county board office, and the state board would need to approve the site and the plan as providing adequate coverage of the county’s electorate.

A third requirement is if a county board is using a privately owned voting site, one not supported by tax dollars, because there isn’t another equally suitable site available, the county board would have to show that the site doesn’t disproportionately favor any party racial or ethnic group or candidate.

In addition, the state board takes into consideration whether a plan as a whole is going to disproportionately favor any particular group, and federal meets the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance, making sure the polling places are handicap accessible, or an accommodation like curbside voting.

Democrat member Jeff Carmon asked Adam Steele, associate general counsel for the board how many of the 80 counties whose plans were approved had previously had Sunday voting. Steele told him he would have to do some research as they only pulled that information for the non-unanimous counties.

“OK,” Carmon replied. “You all provided me with some documents earlier. In 2022, Alamance County had Sunday voting, Bladen had Sunday voting, Catawba had Sunday voting, Duplin had Sunday voting, Gaston had Sunday voting. As I was going through, I saw quite a few of the unanimous plans that previously had Sunday voting and did not have Sunday voting this go around. Just wanted to note that trend for the public.”

The North Carolina House gave final approval Tuesday to a pair of rewritten election bills that would shorten early voting for primary elections and require the state auditor to review election procedures across all 100 counties, sending the measures to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein.

Representatives voted to concur with the substantial changes senators made to both bills last week. House Bill 958, Election Law Changes, passed 62-47. House Bill 834, SBOE Administrative Changes, passed 74-35.

Among the most significant changes in HB 958 is a provision reducing early voting from 17 days to 10 days for primaries, second primaries, and runoff elections.

Democrat Gov. Josh Stein told reporters after Tuesday’s Council of State meeting he believes both bills are an attempt to shift power away from Democrats.

“There’s no state in the country where the auditor oversees elections,” Stein said. “The elections have been administered by the governor forever, and the governors have treated it as a nonpartisan professional elections administration entity. And the auditor here hired the former executive director of the Republican Party to direct the local boards of elections, we’ve come to learn, on when to have early voting and where to have early voting. That is incredibly damaging to the public confidence, and so what I want is for government to work for people.”

The governor’s appointment authority over the State Board of Elections was transferred to the state auditor under Senate Bill 382, which became law in December 2024, before Stein took office. The auditor’s first appointments took effect May 1, 2025, and the board was administratively transferred to the Department of the State Auditor on July 1, 2025.

updated numbered memo guidance

The state board also unanimously approved updated guidance for county boards to follow any directives that state board issues regarding numbered memos.

Steele said he realized that the resolution needed some updating and clearer language after looking at it when a few memos were issued for the recounts in the Senate District 26 primary earlier this year, when there wasn’t enough time to call a meeting.

Under the new resolution, the executive director would need to send a proposed directive to the state board via email, and if no one objects within 48 hours, the directive may be issued. If one member objects, a meeting would need to be held for the board to vote on the directive.

Previously, the executive director could use emergency powers to make any administrative decisions, with the state board reviewing the decision afterward.

“State election board approves early voting plans for 80 counties” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.