The N.C. State Board of Elections picked an extraordinarily poor time to crack up, with just over 40 days to go before a presidential election where North Carolina is a key swing state.
Until recently, the board had been comprised of five members — three Democrats and two Republicans. Then, the two Republicans, David Black and Ken Raymond, tendered separate letters of resignation.
At issue are proposed settlements to lawsuits that the board approved in a closed-door session. The agreements would loosen requirements on absentee, mail-in ballots.
Changes include allowing a voter to correct (“cure”) a ballot that is incomplete in some way with a signed affidavit. This cure would apply to common mistakes on absentee ballots, such as a missing witness signature or address. A judge will decide whether to accept the proposed settlement in the coming week.
The elections board, whose chairman is Democrat Damon Circosta, announced the vote had been unanimous.
But Raymond, in his letter, said lawyers in the office of N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein had not explained all the relevant implications and background before the board made its decision. Black wrote that he, too, had not been provided all the facts and said to continue to serve on the board would be “untenable.”
Two days later, the Democratic members of the board pushed back. They held an emergency meeting over video conference and authorized the release of the minutes from the closed-door session.
The board of elections had stated in a press release that the unanimous agreement came about after all board members had heard from their lawyers and litigation attorneys, before and after a closed-door session on Sept. 15.
Circosta said the Republicans’ assertions they were not given all the information was “simply not true.” He noted that the vote was unanimous and came after three hours of discussion.
The proposed settlement has drawn a furious backlash from some Republicans. State Senate Leader Phil Berger called it “unethical collusion” between the board of elections, Stein and the left-leaning plaintiffs in the case.
The timing of this brouhaha is not ideal.
North Carolina residents are already voting, and the state is smashing all records for mail-in ballots because of concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic. As of Friday afternoon, 1 million ballots had been mailed out and more than a quarter-million had been returned and processed.
How North Carolina handles that flood of mail-in ballots has national implications. President Donald Trump has repeatedly argued, without evidence, that absentee, mail-in voting is rife with fraud. Sources already suggest his campaign will challenge the proposed settlements in court if they stand.
Our state is one of the most important battlegrounds in the race between Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden. Polls are a toss-up, and North Carolina could swing the race. Everyone will be watching what we do here.
In short: We need to get this right and the process needs to look fair.
These recent events put a big ding in that idea.
We are not ruling out that this snafu may be the result of poor communications between the board members. But decent and transparent communication is an expectation we demand of our top leaders. The release of the meeting minutes was at least a good step in that direction.
— The Fayetteville Observer