Republicans who now control North Carolina's state and many county election boards have backed changes to early voting plans in several counties, including Jackson, Pasquotank, and Wake, that would move or eliminate voting sites on college campuses, according to The New York Times.
Democrats and voting-rights advocates say the changes would disproportionately affect younger voters, who tend to support Democratic candidates.
Public records obtained by Common Cause North Carolina show Dallas Woodhouse, the elections liaison for Republican state Auditor Dave Boliek, texted the county board's Republican chair with instructions including "Drop Sunday" and expressed support for moving the county's early voting site away from Elizabeth City State University's campus to the county elections office.
Those same text messages show Woodhouse urging Pasquotank officials to eliminate Sunday early voting.
Sunday voting has historically been heavily used by Black churches through "Souls to the Polls" voter turnout efforts.
“It’s clear that the auditor’s staff person, who was the former executive director of the Republican Party, has been interfering with and directing local county boards of elections on how to shape their early voting plans, and that’s just wrong,” Gov.-elect Josh Stein, a Democrat, told the Times.
“I am not comforted by the partisan turn of the State Board of Elections, but that’s exactly what the Republican Legislature had in mind for it when they took authority away from me and gave it to the auditor — the only auditor in the country, by the way, who oversees elections.”
Marshall Elstad, treasurer of NC State Democrats, during remarks to the Wake County Board of Commissioners last week, said the loss of a voting site at NC State University was “a devastating and demoralizing blow for us as a student community.”
Republicans have said the changes are intended to improve election administration and accessibility.
"We had 15 sites [in 2022, and] going to 18 sites, which would also be a 20% increase. We're really fortunate that our Board [of Elections] went with a higher number of sites being offered, and then our county commissioners approving the budget to support those sites,” said Olivia McCall, director of the Wake County Board of Elections.