Guilford Co BOE Nixes Campus Early Voting at A&T and UNC-Greensboro

 

Four Eggers, Member, SBOE

 

Joining the Republican rush to discourage college-student voting in North Carolina, the Guilford County Board of Elections, with its Republican majority (plus one Democrat arrrrg!), passed its early voting plan, which took away General Election early voting sites previously available at North Carolina A&T and at UNC-Greensboro. The meeting was packed with students who remained quiet and respectful (for the most part) through a dirty deed that took less than 30 minutes. One person did yell out during the discussion about campus voting, “You don’t care about these people!” And was escorted out.

The vote of the board was 4-1, meaning one Democrat broke with her fellow party appointee and voted with the Republicans. Because the vote was not unanimous -- a tic in North Carolina election law -- it must now go for final resolution to the State Board of Elections (SBOE), where men like Four Eggers and Francis DeLuca and Bob Rucho will fer shore nix the campuses. The boss of these SBOE bosses, State Auditor Dave Boliek, is already well known as the vote suppressor supreme. It's a perfect circle of life, if life is like an anaconda. The NCGOP now owns access to the polls, an ambition they've had for decades.

The Democrat who voted yesterday with the Republicans is Felita Regina Donnell, a retired revenue agent for the IRS, a graduate of A&T, executive board member of the Greensboro NAACP, past president of the African American Caucus of the North Carolina Democratic Party, past president of Guilford County Democratic Women, and a former member of the North Carolina Democratic Party's Council of Review. I would call her a big deal in the Party. Who just left a gaping wound in the side of Democracy.

 

Sue Their Sorry Asses!

 

The new Republican majority on the Jackson Co. Board of Elections voted 3-2 to eliminate an early-voting site on the campus of Western Carolina University that has been used for a decade. According to Chris Cooper, a political scientist at WCU, the university’s voting site has served "an outsize proportion of young and diverse voters compared to the rest of the county’s polling places."

Meanwhile, the new Republican majority on the Guilford Co. Board of Elections also voted 3-2 to reject a proposal to include early voting sites at UNC Greensboro and North Carolina A&T State University, which had been the case in 2024.

It's very clear why this is going on. The youth vote is a problem for Republicans, and they intend to make it as difficult as possible for that age group. The final decision on Jackson and Guilford will be made by the State Board of Elections, and we're pretty sure how that will go with its particular Republican majority. The only remedy will be for the injured parties in Jackson and Guilford to sue.

Watauga County faced the same thing in 2013, when the election of Pat McCrory changed the local Board of Elections to Republican control (under the guiding arm of Stacy "Four" Eggers), which promptly eliminated the polling site at the AppState Student Union. The local Watauga Voting Rights Taskforce sued in Wake Superior Court, and the judge concluded that the decision was arbitrary and capricious. He ordered a polling place on the AppState campus. Far as I know that order is still good, which perhaps explains why the current Watauga BOE hasn't attempted to eliminate campus voting this year.

If anyone's interested, we know a good Raleigh law firm that might help you guys.

The Fog Infesting the Forsyth and Guilford County Boards of Election

Seems pretty clear from investigative reporting by Travis Fain at WRAL that the staff at the State Board of Elections (SBOE) failed to follow the law and did not test the source code of new electronic voting machines that have been certified by the SBOE but whose security may be porous.

We read just this morning that the Forsyth County Board of Elections has decided to buy ES&S voting machines, the ones much criticized for producing a bar code that cannot be read by a normal voter (nor verified as accurate, apparently). At which we did a double-take. Whaaaa? Don't the members of the Forsyth County Board of Elections (Republican members, you are excused from this test by teacher), don't those public servants in charge of fair, free, and honest elections read the news? Don't they know the considered opinion of election computer software experts that the ES&S machines -- especially those -- can't necessarily be trusted.

Not just in Forsyth is there an emerging problem with the safety of the next General Elections. It's happening in Guilford County, too. Two days ago, according to reporting by Taft Wireback, the Guilford BOE seems to have been poised to also choose the ES&S hardware, but the attendance of many citizens (even at a 2 p.m. meeting) who argued against those machines, and the concern of at least one Guilford BOE member, persuaded the 5-member board to postpone its decision until next week.

Don't know if in the meantime those members will be seeking the opinions of election machinery experts, but they should. However, their past record doesn't argue for it. A majority of that board apparently wanted to get dispensation from the NC General Assembly to continue to use their old totally hackable electronic voting equipment in 2020-- machines now ruled by statute as banned from use in NC. That expressed desire to keep being foolish about election security amounts to the reckless disregard for the rights of voters.

Throwing Us a Line

4-hour wait time to vote reported at this
Mecklenburg Co. site yesterday. Very
hot in the sun!

Some people saw the long lines yesterday on the first day of Early Voting as a celebration of democracy. I get that. But I also see those long wait times as the last gasp of voter suppression.

Fact: We have fewer Early Voting sites open right now in North Carolina than were open in 2012. High Point Enterprise reporter Paul Johnson noted that Guilford County voted 11,000 people on the first day of Early Voting in 2012, with numerous polling sites open. This year, the Guilford BOE Republicans opted to open only one site this week. Consequently, early voting on the 1st day in Guilford was down from 11,000 to under 2,000.

The worst reports we've seen are from Mecklenburg County, whose two Republican BOE members are well-documented enemies (scroll down!) of Early Voting. Four hours in line is unconscionable.

It's been the plan all along, IMO. When the Fourth Circuit threw out NC's election law, the ruling left the Republican Boards of Election with fewer arrows in their quiver. Without the suppressive mechanisms of a photo ID, with voting out of precinct restored, and with same-day registration revived, the Republicans were left with the singular tactic of long lines to discourage voting. Long lines because there are fewer early voting sites and reduced hours.

So far, the people look as though they intend to tough it out. Republicans claim that those long lines prove their innocence: "See, we haven't suppressed the vote." I look at those long lines and see an electorate energized against a ruthless power structure.

Yesterday in Raleigh: Shaw Univ. students
waiting to vote early

Notes on Profiling Voters
Not that all those people in line are voting Democratic!

I suspect we all do it: looking at the line of people waiting to vote and wondering who they'll be voting for. Yesterday morning in line I saw some angry faces, set jaws, pissed-off expressions. "Ah," I thought, "Trump voters!" I have noted over the years that conservatives arrive at the polls with a head of steam. You can tell from their faces that they're fuming.

In my experience, Democrats arrive at their civic duty with happier expressions, more open and jovial faces ... except, of course, for the Democrats intending to write in a name not on the ballot.

Plaintiffs Sue to Expand Early Voting in Five NC Counties

SBOE Member Josh Malcolm

Sure enough, and as we predicted, the day-long meeting early in September of the NC State Board of Elections (SBOE) has produced a new lawsuit, though the new legal action doesn't arise from individual counties where voter suppression was rubber-stamped by the SBOE. The new petition comes from plaintiffs -- principally the League of Women Voters -- who successfully sued to overturn the entirety of the 2013 monster elections law in North Carolina.

Yesterday, lawyers for the League of Women Voters filed in the NC Middle District of Federal Court for immediate expansion of Early Voting in five mainly urban NC counties: Nash, Forsyth, Guilford, Mecklenburg, and New Hanover.

The specific requests (thanks to WRAL for the details):

Nash County to open "early voting at the Braswell Memorial Library in Rocky Mount during the first seven days of the early voting period." That early voting site is closed during the first week of early voting under the current plan. It is in a heavily minority area, according to court documents, and closing it puts early voting "out of reach for many (and a disproportionately large share) of Nash’s African-American voters."

New Hanover County to open early voting on Sunday hours. Sunday voting is often used by African American churches to move "souls to the polls."

Mecklenburg County to expand early voting on the last Saturday until 5 p.m. Mecklenburg's early voting plan was one of the most hotly debated during the state boards meeting. "I think this is going to be the poster child for what not to do," Democratic board member Joshua Malcolm said during the meeting.

Guilford County to open more than one polling site during the first week of early voting and to ensure "a sufficient number of locations to adequately serve Guilford County voters, but in any case no less than the number of locations available for voters in 2012, and including those locations that were heavily used by African-American voters."

Forsyth County to expand early voting to Sundays, open multiple locations during the first week of early voting and open an early voting site on the Winston-Salem State University Campus.

The Federal court for the Middle District of NC has the burden of overseeing the implementation of the Fourth Circuit Court's original ruling which threw out the Republican election "reforms." Will they see what all the rest of us in that room in Raleigh on September 8 could see -- that boards of elections all over the state were doing what they could to circumvent the Fourth Circuit's ruling, and the SBOE was abetting them.

Republican Clocks Get Cleaned at the Guilford Co. Board of Elections

With the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals adding seven days to Early Voting, the NC State Board of Elections (SBOE) has opened the door for county BOEs to muck about, and the Guilford County BOE decided -- actually announced last week -- that it would be extending Early Voting only at the BOE's office downtown and that it would also be closing sites at UNCG and NC A&T and at Barber Park, a majority black polling place.

That was the Republican plan until noon today when the Guilford BOE called its emergency meeting and watched the place swarm with protesters who "filled every seat and lined the walls" (reporting by Kate Elizabeth Queram in the Greensboro News&Record). Take a look at the video.

Board of Elections members were drowned out for most of the proceedings by the audience, who shouted for a public comment period and eventually linked arms and began singing, "We Shall Not Be Moved."

Board of Elections Chairwoman Kathryn Lindley pleaded with the crowd to be quiet. Eventually, board members pushed their chairs back from their microphones and debated behind the dais as the crowd chanted, clapped and sang.

Something big happened in that meeting behind the dais that nobody could hear. The Republicans caved. They approved more Early Voting hours than in 2012, kept the two college Early Voting sites and the black precinct site, and kept weekend hours.

Power to the people!