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The first lawsuit on Senate Bill 382 was filed Thursday evening, just one day after the State House voted to override the Governor’s veto of the bill. This is unlikely to be the only lawsuit on the bill, with many expecting lawsuits to be filed on changes the bill made to the Board of Elections,...

The first lawsuit on Senate Bill 382 was filed Thursday evening, just one day after the State House voted to override the Governor’s veto of the bill. This is unlikely to be the only lawsuit on the bill, with many expecting lawsuits to be filed on changes the bill made to the Board of Elections,...

The first lawsuit on Senate Bill 382 was filed Thursday evening, just one day after the State House voted to override the Governor’s veto of the bill. This is unlikely to be the only lawsuit on the bill, with many expecting lawsuits to be filed on changes the bill made to the Board of Elections,...

The first lawsuit on Senate Bill 382 was filed Thursday evening, just one day after the State House voted to override the Governor’s veto of the bill. This is unlikely to be the only lawsuit on the bill, with many expecting lawsuits to be filed on changes the bill made to the Board of Elections,...

The first lawsuit on Senate Bill 382 was filed Thursday evening, just one day after the State House voted to override the Governor’s veto of the bill. This is unlikely to be the only lawsuit on the bill, with many expecting lawsuits to be filed on changes the bill made to the Board of Elections,...

The first lawsuit on Senate Bill 382 was filed Thursday evening, just one day after the State House voted to override the Governor’s veto of the bill. This is unlikely to be the only lawsuit on the bill, with many expecting lawsuits to be filed on changes the bill made to the Board of Elections,...

The first lawsuit on Senate Bill 382 was filed Thursday evening, just one day after the State House voted to override the Governor’s veto of the bill. This is unlikely to be the only lawsuit on the bill, with many expecting lawsuits to be filed on changes the bill made to the Board of Elections,...

The first lawsuit on Senate Bill 382 was filed Thursday evening, just one day after the State House voted to override the Governor’s veto of the bill. This is unlikely to be the only lawsuit on the bill, with many expecting lawsuits to be filed on changes the bill made to the Board of Elections,...

North Carolina’s absentee ballot law protects voters from manipulation and ballot trafficking A 2022 court ruling allows anyone to take possession of a disabled person’s absentee ballot The General Assembly should make permanent a post–Hurricane Helene law allowing multipartisan assistance teams to take possession of absentee ballots North Carolina has seen a flurry of election...

The Civitas Partisan Index (CPI) is a measure of the partisan tendency of state legislative districts Although the CPI is not a predictive model, someone using the CPI alone would have correctly predicted the outcome of 98.8% of races assigned a partisan lean The two districts (of 162 assigned a partisan lean) the CPI got...

Shorter legislative sessions are part of North Carolina’s citizen-legislature tradition and benefit both legislators and taxpayers The North Carolina General Assembly has experienced lengthening sessions over the past decade A constitutional amendment imposing flexible session limits would help the General Assembly return to its citizen-legislature roots This is the second of a four-part series covering...

The North Carolina General Assembly currently pays the fifth-lowest legislative salary of all states and U.S. territories The General Assembly should raise legislative salaries to enable more North Carolinians to be financially able to run for office An increase in taxpayer burden due to increasing salaries can be offset by reducing the length of legislative...

On the heels of incumbent Allison Riggs’ apparent win in the North Carolina Supreme Court race, challenger Jefferson Griffin’s campaign has challenged about 60,000 ballots they say are plagued by “irregularities and discrepancies.” The campaign’s list of protests to county election boards covers several categories, listed below (with letters to the Durham County Board of...

As part of the latest hurricane-recovery relief package, the legislature has embedded several policy changes into the bill that change various agencies, appointments, and powers issued to Council of State positions. Ignoring for the time being the questionable practice of adding policy changes to a funding bill (especially when the vehicle used is a unamendable...

Appointments to unfulfilled terms should reflect the will of voters The current rules for replacing judges and Council of State members give the governor the power to subvert the will of the people The North Carolina State Constitution should be amended so that appointees are of the same party as the elected officials they are...

For Republicans on the national front, election night was a good night.  Not only did Donald Trump take every toss-up state and likely the popular vote, but Republicans were able to retake the Senate and maintain Congress.  Trump improved his numbers in every state, including deep blue states like New York (11 points), with the...

The 2024 election has come  to pass (apart from a few notable exceptions here in North Carolina, like the NC Supreme Court Race), and with it comes the favorite time of many election analysts: the autopsy. While we won’t have some data available till the county canvass 10 days after the election, this time can...

When Gov. Roy Cooper announced in 2023 that he was appointing Allison Riggs to the North Carolina Supreme Court to fill the remaining term of retiring justice Michael Morgan, I predicted that she would likely have a short and unhappy tenure on the court, unhappy because she was in the minority and short because she...

November 19, 2024 UPDATE While we will have a statewide recount, it appears that incumbent North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs has achieved the unlikely, pulling ahead of Griffin ten days after election day. As of this morning, according to data from the North Carolina State Board of Elections (SBE), she leads Griffin by...

Ballot-marking devices increase the chances of voting errors Incidents in the 2024 election highlight concerns over ballot-marking devices The General Assembly should require all counties to use hand-marked paper ballots Incidents in other states in the November 5 election have highlighted problems with ballot-marking devices (BMDs): touchscreen voting machines that produce a small paper ballot...

While it may be hard to predict the outcome of many races in North Carolina tonight, we have a pretty good idea of how the evening and subsequent days will progress. Here are three things to know about tonight’s election results in the Old North State. 1. It Will Be Election Night in North Carolina...

Election day is upon us, and with it come many eyes on battleground states like North Carolina that will determine who will be the next President of the United States.  Polling indicates that both the presidential and most other statewide elections are going to be close this year.  While eyes will be on these top-of-the-ballot...

As North Carolina gears up for election day, let’s take a final look at the data on the pre–election day ballots. Most of the data will come from the John Locke Foundation’s Vote Tracker. Voter Registration Changes: Republicans Led in Same-Day Registrations As seen on the John Locke Foundation’s Voter Registration Changes page, Republicans had...

With less than a week until election day, candidate third-quarter finance reports are beginning to be posted on the State Board of Elections website. Unlike federal elections with the FEC, reports to the state board of elections require processing before they become public on the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) website. Though we are...