Election “Integrity” Comes to North Carolina
We knew it was coming. We saw it unfolding earlier this year in states like Georgia, Arizona, and Iowa.
Now, North Carolina voters are facing a new round of suppression from the extreme right with the newly filed Election “Integrity” Act.
After Trump was handed a resounding defeat, Republicans have been quick to file bills aimed at dismantling our entire our elections system. Typically, when one political party loses, they look at their platform, see how they can improve it to appeal to more voters. Republicans are going down a dangerously undemocratic path. It’s easier to just keep you from voting than it is to reflect on the fact that their failed policies have turned voters away.
This is not a new Republican strategy. North Carolina’s Republican Party has been at the forefront of voter suppression and intimidation tactics.
In 2013, Republican legislators passed a voter ID bill that the court would later strike down as unconstitutional, and targeted African-American voters with “almost surgical precision.”
Their second attempt at passing at voter ID law in 2018 wasn’t much better, and is still tied up in court. Following his defeat in 2016, former Governor Pat McCrory took up the mantle of decrying voter fraud by wrongly accusing North Carolinians of voting illegally. He was later sued for libel.
Now, Republicans have turned their focus on the method of voting used largely by Democratic voters in 2020: mail-in ballots.
The efforts to suppress Democratic votes went as far as slowing down the entire US Postal Service. But that still wasn’t enough to stop both Biden and Cooper from winning their elections.
Senate Republicans are back to see that doesn’t happen again.
Senate Bill 326, the Elections “Integrity” Act, would stop absentee ballots received after 5 pm on Election Day from being counted. If you mailed your ballot in three days before Election Day, but it didn’t arrive until the day after because of a slow mail system: too bad. Republicans don’t think your vote should count.
In fact, if this had been law during the 2020 elections, 14,500 North Carolinians’ votes would have been tossed out. That’s more than the entire town of Graham.
This move would have undoubtedly swayed several elections across our state. The State Supreme Court race between Paul Newby and Cheri Beasley was determined by just 401 votes. The New Hanover County state senate race was won by Republican Michael Lee with fewer than 1,500 votes.
Democrats want to increase access to the ballot box through automatic voter registration, pre-paid postage for mail-in ballots, and increased early voting days.
Republicans want to stop every vote from being counted. Why would they do this? Because they know that, if every legal vote is counted, they won’t win.
