The Election Law Vetoes That Will Be Overridden Today

 

S 747 removes the 3-day "grace period" for getting mail-in ballots to boards of elections. Under this law, all mail-in ballots must be received by Election Day. Gov. Cooper vetoed this bill on August 24th.

S 749 completely restructures all local and state boards of elections so that deadlock is assured with equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, all of them dug into partisan bunkers (unless one Democrat decides to cave because he just wants everyone to get along.) Cooper vetoed on September 28th.

While Republicans say the even split on the boards will lead to more bipartisan decisions, critics of the idea say it could lead to deadlock on important issues such as where to place early voting sites and certifying election results, potentially sending that to courts or the General Assembly to resolve.

Under state law, if there’s deadlock on where to place early voting sites, a county would default to having a single site. (Michael Hyland)

And that's precisely how the Republicans in Watauga can get rid of a polling site on the AppState campus, going around a court order due to stalemate on the Board of Elections. The default when the Board can't agree on an early voting plan is that there is only one early voting site available in that county -- the local board office.

Yeah, that's the kind of chaos the Republicans have created.