- Even though accusations against election officials of large-scale fraud were unfounded, the 2020 election exposed problems with election integrity in North Carolina
- The General Assembly and State Board of Elections have instituted numerous reforms since then
- Despite that progress, there is still more to do to enhance election integrity in North Carolina
The year 2020 was a stress test for election administration and integrity in North Carolina. While the system generally held together well, that stress test exposed problems with how election officials conducted themselves. It also exposed or exacerbated problems with election law and policy.
Since then, the North Carolina General Assembly has addressed several of those problems. Nevertheless, changes are still needed to ensure that election results accurately reflect the electorate’s intent. Some of those changes are in a bill that Gov. Josh Stein has vetoed, which the General Assembly can still pass into law by overriding his veto.
Failures in the 2020 election stress test
A John Locke Foundation report on the conduct of the 2020 election in North Carolina found numerous problems with election policy and practice. Those problems, as we noted, “undermined the security of the election and cast doubt on whether all of the ballots counted accurately reflected the intent of legal voters in the state.”
While space does not permit a full enumeration of those problems, here is a summary of some of them, including problems that emerged after 2020:
- The North Carolina State Board of Elections (SBE) illegally suppressed election observers in 2020. They attempted to change election rules illegally in 2021 to limit the number of observers and in 2022 to restrict how they could perform their duties.
- Election officials referred only a few of the alleged election crimes that they discovered to prosecutors, and only a few of those referrals resulted in investigations, much less prosecutions.
- State law required election officials to accept any absentee ballot up to three days after election day if they were postmarked by election day. That dependence on postmarks created confusion and conflict, requiring officials to deal with unclear or missing ones.
- State law also required that completed ballots be transmitted to county elections boards only by mail or courier service, by the voter, or “by the voter’s near relative or verifiable legal guardian.” SBE Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell effectively nullified that law by issuing guidance to county election officials to accept a ballot even if it was “delivered by someone who was not authorized to possess the ballot.”
- The State Board of Elections entered a collusive lawsuit settlement (also known as “sue and settle”) with Democratic attorney Marc Elias just before the 2020 election to weaken several laws protecting election integrity.
- Mark Zuckerberg and others sent $7.2 million to the SBE and 35 counties during the 2020 election. There is evidence of both partisan intent and partisan effect behind those “Zuck bucks.”
Again, this is only a partial list. See Locke’s report on “What Happened in 2020?” for more details.
Victories for election integrity since 2020
In the years since the 2020 election, those supporting election integrity have won several important victories.
The first victories were over collusive lawsuit settlements. First, a federal judge struck down part of the SBE’s 2020 settlement with Elias, limiting its damage. More importantly, a clause in the 2021 budget requires that when legislative leaders intervene as defendants to protect a law that they believe executive branch agencies will not adequately defend, they must be a party to any settlement with the plaintiffs.
The SBE’s attempts to restrict the number and actions of election observers through rule changes were beaten back by either citizen action or the North Carolina Rules Review Commission’s finding on the clear illegality of those attempts.
The SBE updated guidance to the county boards in 2026 to spoil and reissue a ballot if they had “specific, first-hand information that the ballot was delivered by a person other than the voter, the voter’s near relative, the voter’s legal guardian, or a person of the voter’s choice when the voter needs assistance due to disability.”
The General Assembly passed Senate Bill 747 in 2023, which delivered a host of election policy reforms. Among other reforms, the bill:
- Made election day the deadline for election officials to receive most absentee ballots
- Required the SBE to “report violations of the election laws to the State Bureau of Investigation” (which falls short of Locke’s recommendation to create a body specifically tasked with investigating election fraud, however)
- Banned “Zuck bucks” and other private funding of election administration
In short, North Carolina has made significant progress on election integrity over the past six years.
An opportunity to make North Carolina elections more secure
While North Carolina has made great strides in improving the administration of our elections and making them more secure since 2020, there is still work to do.
Some of those further reforms are in House Bill 958. Here are two of the more important improvements the bill would make.
Performance audits
The Locke report on the 2020 election recommended audits that would
require a review of voter registration records [and] also verify chains of custody for all ballots and voting equipment, ensuring that only eligible citizens can vote, and that observers and the public had meaningful access to every step of the election process.
Such performance or procedural audits are already being conducted in states like Utah, where they help discover and correct improper or illegal practices by local election officials and foster a culture of continuous improvement between elections. While the North Carolina state auditor already has broad authority to conduct performance audits of state government bodies, the bill would establish parameters for those audits of elections.
Privacy protection and voter list maintenance
As the SBE has explained, cleaner voter rolls help make elections more secure:
Voter roll list maintenance is important because it ensures ineligible voters are not included on poll books, reduces the possibility for poll worker error and decreases opportunities for fraud.
To help make voter rolls cleaner, the state should enter into data-sharing agreements with other states to remove registrations of those who have moved out of North Carolina. One problem is that state law does not protect the privacy of people’s data shared through those programs. The bill would make data shared with other states through such a program “not a public record,” which would let North Carolina securely share data and better clean voter rolls.
Other reforms in the bill include allowing nonpartisan candidates to appoint election observers and requiring prospective candidates to be a member of a party for at least a year before they can run in that party’s primary (to restrict fake candidacies).
The General Assembly may try to override Gov. Stein’s veto of House Bill 958 after the November 3 election. An override would be another important step in making North Carolina’s elections more secure.
