How the Republican push to change voting rules in a key state could hurt Democrats in the midterms

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North Carolina has a history of nail-biter elections. And a series of changes enacted by Republicans could be critical in this year’s midterms, including in a marquee Senate race viewed by Democrats as a pickup opportunity.

Since the 2024 election, the state has sharply curtailed Sunday voting, imposed new restrictions on how mail-in ballots are processed, and placed Republicans in control of elections boards after the legislature stripped power from the Democratic governor.

President Donald Trump and his allies are mounting a sweeping campaign that attempts to reshape how this year’s midterm elections are conducted. While many of Trump’s federal proposals – including the SAVE America Act and an executive order on which ballots will be delivered – won’t move forward this fall, North Carolina is among the states that have changed its elections in ways that worry Democrats and left-leaning advocates.

“The newly reconstituted and Republican-dominated State Board of Elections has waged a campaign to silence many North Carolinians at the ballot box,” Sam Chan, a spokesperson for former Gov. Roy Cooper, said in a statement. Cooper is running against Republican Michael Whatley for the seat held by retiring GOP Sen. Thom Tillis.

Political observers say even small changes that affect partisan turnout could help decide contests – from a pair of competitive US House races and a high-stakes state Supreme Court election to more local battles that will determine whether Republicans retain their supermajority in the state Senate.

A fight over the outcome of a previous state Supreme Court race between Democratic incumbent Justice Allison Riggs and North Carolina Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin, a Republican, dragged on for six months before Griffin conceded last year.

Riggs retained the seat by just 734 votes.

Two years ago, Shia Rozier says it took her about seven minutes to walk from her dorm room at North Carolina Agriculture & Technical State University to a polling place on the school’s campus to cast a ballot in the presidential race. This year, she said, the closest early voting location for most students is a 45-minute walk away.

“I think they’re scared,” Rozier said of opponents. “If we do go vote in numbers, I think some people’s seats will be up for grabs, and they’re trying to eliminate that.”

Republicans have pushed back on the criticism, saying voters in North Carolina will have a record number of early voting locations this fall and ample opportunities to cast their ballots in the midterms.

“We disagree with the characterization that reasonable election safeguards and administrative decisions amount to voter suppression,” the North Carolina state GOP said in a statement.

“What we’ve seen in North Carolina is a bunch of angry Democrats who don’t like that Republicans now have a part of election governance,” said Dallas Woodhouse, a former executive director of the state’s Republican Party who was involved in shaping early voting rules at the state auditor’s office.

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North Carolina’s state elections board made its last move just hours before counties started sending out absentee ballots.

It voted on September 4 to direct election officials not to count absentee ballots returned with the inner envelope unsealed. The board also limited to “near relatives” and legal guardians the people allowed to drop off a mail ballot on behalf of most voters.

If a voter cannot correct deficiencies with a ballot, it will be “spoiled,” or canceled, and a new one reissued. Critics say that will lead to votes being tossed out on technical grounds.

Republicans said they acted to guarantee the election’s integrity.

“It’s a ballot security issue to make sure that the voter’s will and intent is being followed through,” one of the GOP board members, Stacy “Four” Eggers, said before the vote .

Only about 5% of the 5.7 million North Carolinians who cast ballots in the 2024 general election voted by mail. But Democrats in the state are more likely to use the method than Republicans are, state data show.

As of Tuesday, Democrats had requested roughly 42% of the 67,990 absentee-by-mail ballots, according to election records. A little more than 17% went to Republicans, and about 40% to unaffiliated voters.

In a statement, North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Josh Stein called the board’s absentee ballot directive “a slap in the face to voters.”

Jason Tyson, a spokesman for the state elections board, said it’s “certainly within the governor’s purview and auspices to make his feelings known” but he said the state board is focused on helping county officials and ensuring “our elections are secure.”

In North Carolina’s 1st District, Democratic Rep. Don Davis already faces an uphill reelection battle after state lawmakers redrew the congressional map to create a more GOP-friendly seat.

Now, there’s no Sunday voting in any county in the district, according to an analysis by Christopher Cooper, a political scientist at Western Carolina University.

Hours and locations for early voting have shifted around the state. Just 17 counties will allow early voting on Sundays this year, down from 40 in 2022, Cooper’s analysis found.

State officials note the number of early voting sites available has grown to a record 367 for a midterm election and up from 359 during the 2022 midterms.

In eliminating Sunday voting options, county election board members argued that those hours were underutilized or strained limited resources. At least one Republican cited religious objections.

“By having Sunday voting, we are requiring people to work on the Lord’s Day, and I do believe that the downfall of this country will be contingent on what we do with God,” said Matt Longworth, a Republican who serves on the election board in rural Anson County, southeast of Charlotte.

Roughly 45% of Anson County’s voting-age population is Black, Census figures show.

The widespread rollback of Sunday voting across the state “spells an intentional assault on the Black vote,” said Marcus Bass, executive director of the North Carolina Black Alliance, which has helped groups organize Souls to the Polls events.

In counties without Sunday voting, he said, faith communities are working on other opportunities, including encouraging voting tied to Wednesday night gatherings for Bible study.

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Traditionally in North Carolina, the governor’s party has held the reins on election administration.

But in a lame-duck session after the 2024 election, Republicans in the state legislature used their-then veto-proof majority to strip Stein, the incoming governor, of the power to appoint members of North Carolina’s five-member state elections board. The legislature transferred that authority to state Auditor Dave Boliek, a Republican whose job is to monitor North Carolina’s finances.

Republicans, through Boliek’s appointing authority, now also control the majorities on each of North Carolina’s 100 county election boards after years of Democratic majorities at the state and local level. (On Wednesday, a state appellate court ruled 2-1 to uphold the legislature’s decision to strip Stein of the appointment powers.)

Earlier this year, Bill Thompson, the Republican chairman of the Jackson County Election Board in western North Carolina, said publicly that he felt “pressure” from the auditor’s office to reject a plan for an early voting site on the campus of Western Carolina University in favor of one at a community recreation center, according to minutes of the board meeting and local news coverage .

Woodhouse, the former state Republican Party executive director, resigned from the auditor’s office earlier this year, following multiple disclosures of him giving specific guidance to local Republican board members on early voting locations and days.

In the case of Jackson County, for instance, Woodhouse urged Thompson to “stand strong” against efforts to add the voting location on the Western Carolina campus at the expense of the rec center, according to text messages obtained by American Oversight, a left-leaning government watchdog group.

The campus polling location, Woodhouse argued in his texts, was new and untested and would introduce “unfamiliarity and uncertainty” into the November election.

At the county level, Thompson was the sole “no” vote against the campus location. (In the end, the state board, which resolves any disagreements among county board members on early voting procedures, signed off on both the rec center and the campus sites.)

Woodhouse said he worked hard to preserve generous access to early voting, which runs for 17 days, while also seeking to spread voting locations throughout counties.

“The Democrat boards have been in charge for so long, we wanted to make sure rural and suburban voters were also getting ample opportunities,” he said. “That obviously coincided with potential partisan interests, but Republicans have a right to vote, too.”

Randy Brechbiel, a spokesman for the auditor, called the criticism of the office’s actions “partisan, political noise.”

“North Carolinians are highly confident in our state’s elections, and there are more early voting sites and more early voting hours in 2026 than the last comparable midterm election in 2022,” he said in an email.

Jeff Carmon, a Democrat who has served on the state elections board since 2019, said the participation of the state auditor’s office in hyper-local election decisions “creates the appearance of impropriety.”

“I’ve never seen this kind of involvement from the appointing authority,” he said.

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All year long, students from North Carolina Agriculture & Technical State University, the largest historically Black college in the state, have trekked to state and county election board meetings to advocate for an early voting location on campus.

At the county level, four of the five Guilford County Election Board members, including a Democrat, approved a plan that did not include the campus site. The state board affirmed that decision.

Election officials say there’s no history of early voting on the campus during midterm elections, so students technically have not seen their voting access curtailed.

But Rozier, one of the students leading the campaign, argued that practices in past midterms shouldn’t govern what happens in this fall’s election.

Rozier, 22, said she and others active in a student group called Protect Ours NC won’t be deterred from voting this fall. They are now raising funds ahead of the October 15 start of early voting to hire shuttle buses to ferry students to the nearest polling place.

“We won’t be able to make changes around voting without voting,” Rozier said.

CNN’s Dianne Gallagher and Renee Rigdon contributed to this report.

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北卡罗来纳州历来以势均力敌的选举而闻名。共和党人实施的一系列改革措施可能对今年的中期选举至关重要，其中包括民主党人视为夺取参议院席位的焦点选战。

自 2024 年选举以来，该州大幅缩减了周日投票，对邮寄选票的处理方式施加了新的限制，并在立法机构剥夺了民主党州长的权力后，将选举委员会的控制权交给了共和党人。

唐纳德·特朗普总统及其盟友正发起一场声势浩大的运动，试图重塑今年中期选举的进行方式。尽管特朗普的许多联邦提案——包括《拯救美国法案》和一项关于选票递送方式的行政命令——今年秋季不会付诸实施，但北卡罗来纳州等一些州已经对其选举制度进行了修改，这令民主党人和左倾人士感到担忧。

“新近重组且由共和党主导的州选举委员会发起了一场运动，试图让许多北卡罗来纳州选民在投票箱前保持沉默，”前州长罗伊·库珀的发言人萨姆·陈在一份声明中表示。库珀正在与共和党候选人迈克尔·沃特利竞选即将退休的共和党参议员汤姆·蒂利斯的席位。

政治观察家表示，即使是影响党派投票率的微小变化也可能有助于决定选举结果——从两场竞争激烈的美国众议院选举和一场至关重要的州最高法院选举，到决定共和党能否保住州参议院绝对多数席位的更本地化的战斗。

此前，民主党现任法官艾莉森·里格斯和共和党北卡罗来纳州上诉法院法官杰斐逊·格里芬之间就州最高法院选举结果展开了长达六个月的争夺，最终格里芬于去年承认败选。

里格斯仅以734票的微弱优势保住了席位。

两年前，希亚·罗齐尔说，她从北卡罗来纳州农业与技术州立大学的宿舍走到校园内的投票站参加总统选举投票，大约只需要七分钟。而今年，她说，对大多数学生来说，最近的提前投票点步行需要45分钟。

罗齐尔谈到反对派时说：“我认为他们害怕了。如果我们真的大规模投票，我认为有些人的席位就会空缺，而他们正试图阻止这种情况发生。”

共和党人反驳了这些批评，称今年秋季北卡罗来纳州的选民将拥有创纪录数量的提前投票点，并有充足的机会在中期选举中投票。

北卡罗来纳州共和党在一份声明中表示：“我们不同意将合理的选举保障措施和行政决定描述为压制选民的说法。”

“我们在北卡罗来纳州看到的是一群愤怒的民主党人，他们不喜欢共和党人现在参与选举管理，”达拉斯·伍德豪斯说道，他曾是该州共和党的执行主任，并在州审计长办公室参与制定了提前投票规则。

乔纳森·德雷克/路透社/档案照片

北卡罗来纳州选举委员会在各县开始寄出缺席选票前几个小时采取了最后行动。

9月4日，该委员会投票决定指示选举官员不计入未封口内信封的缺席选票。委员会还将大多数选民的邮寄选票代递交范围限定为“近亲属”和法定监护人。

如果选民无法纠正选票上的错误，该选票将被视为“作废”，即作废并重新发放新选票。批评人士指出，这将导致一些选票因技术性问题而被作废。

共和党人表示，他们的行动是为了保障选举的公正性。

“这是一个选票安全问题，要确保选民的意愿和意图得到贯彻执行，”共和党董事会成员之一斯泰西·“福尔”·埃格斯在投票前说道。

在2024年大选中，北卡罗来纳州570万选民中只有约5%的人通过邮寄方式投票。但州数据显示，该州的民主党人比共和党人更倾向于使用这种方式投票。

根据选举记录，截至周二，民主党人申请了约42%的邮寄选票（总共67990张），共和党人申请了略高于17%的选票，无党派选民申请了约40%。

北卡罗来纳州民主党州长乔什·斯坦在一份声明中称，选举委员会的缺席投票指令“是对选民的侮辱”。

州选举委员会发言人杰森·泰森表示，“表达自己的感受当然在州长的职权范围之内”，但他表示，州选举委员会的重点是帮助县级官员，并确保“我们的选举安全”。

在北卡罗来纳州第一选区，民主党众议员唐·戴维斯已经面临着一场艰苦的连任之战，因为州议员们重新划分了国会选区，以创建一个对共和党更有利的席位。

根据西卡罗来纳大学政治学家克里斯托弗·库珀的分析，目前该选区内的任何县都没有周日投票。

全州各地的提前投票时间和地点都发生了变化。库珀的分析发现，今年只有17个县允许在周日进行提前投票，而2022年这一数字为40个。

州政府官员指出，中期选举的提前投票点数量已增至创纪录的 367 个，高于 2022 年中期选举的 359 个。

取消周日投票选项的理由是，这些时段利用率不足或会加剧有限的资源紧张。至少有一位共和党人以宗教信仰为由提出异议。

“通过实行星期日投票，我们要求人们在主日工作，而且我相信，这个国家的衰落将取决于我们如何对待上帝，”马特·朗沃斯说道。他是共和党人，在夏洛特东南部的安森县农村地区的选举委员会任职。

人口普查数据显示，安森县约 45% 的适龄选民为黑人。

北卡罗来纳州黑人联盟执行主任马库斯·巴斯表示，全州范围内取消周日投票的做法“是对黑人选票的蓄意攻击”。该联盟曾帮助一些团体组织“灵魂投票”活动。

他说，在没有周日投票的县，宗教团体正在努力寻找其他投票机会，包括鼓励人们在周三晚上的圣经学习聚会上进行投票。

Robert Willett/Raleigh News & Observer/Tribune News Service/Getty Images

在北卡罗来纳州，州长的政党历来掌控着选举管理。

但在2024年大选后的跛脚鸭会期，州议会的共和党人利用当时足以推翻州长否决权的多数席位，剥夺了即将上任的州长斯坦任命北卡罗来纳州五人选举委员会成员的权力。州议会将这项权力移交给了州审计长戴夫·博利克，博利克也是一名共和党人，他的职责是监督北卡罗来纳州的财政状况。

共和党人通过博利克的任命权，在北卡罗来纳州100个县选举委员会多年来一直由民主党人把持之后，如今也控制了这些委员会的多数席位。（周三，州上诉法院以2比1的投票结果，维持了州议会剥夺斯坦任命权的决定。）

据选举委员会会议记录和当地新闻报道，今年早些时候，北卡罗来纳州西部杰克逊县选举委员会的共和党主席比尔·汤普森公开表示，他感到来自审计办公室的“压力”，要求他否决在西卡罗来纳大学校园设立提前投票点的计划，而选择在社区娱乐中心设立投票点。

伍德豪斯曾任州共和党执行主任，今年早些时候，他因多次被曝向当地共和党委员会成员提供关于提前投票地点和日期的具体指导而辞去了审计员职务。

例如，据左倾政府监督组织“美国监督”（American Oversight）获得的短信显示，在杰克逊县，伍德豪斯敦促汤普森“坚决反对”以牺牲娱乐中心为代价，在西卡罗来纳大学校园内增设投票站的做法。

伍德豪斯在短信中辩称，校园投票站是新的，未经检验，会给 11 月的选举带来“陌生感和不确定性”。

在县一级，汤普森是唯一投反对票反对校园选址的人。（最终，负责解决县级委员会成员之间关于提前投票程序分歧的州委员会批准了娱乐中心和校园两个选址方案。）

伍德豪斯表示，他努力保持提前投票的便利性（提前投票持续 17 天），同时还努力在各县分散投票地点。

他说：“民主党控制的选举委员会执政时间太长了，我们希望确保农村和郊区的选民也能获得充足的投票机会。这显然与潜在的党派利益有关，但共和党人也有投票权。”

审计员发言人兰迪·布雷奇比尔称对该办公室行为的批评是“党派政治噪音”。

他在一封电子邮件中表示：“北卡罗来纳州人民对我们州的选举充满信心，2026 年的提前投票点和提前投票时间都比 2022 年上次类似的中期选举要多。”

自 2019 年以来一直在州选举委员会任职的民主党人杰夫·卡蒙表示，州审计长办公室参与地方选举决策“会造成不当行为的假象”。

他说：“我从未见过任命机构如此积极参与。”

Rachel Jessen/Bloomberg/Getty Images

一年来，北卡罗来纳州农业与技术州立大学（该州最大的传统黑人大学）的学生们一直奔波于州和县选举委员会会议，倡导在校园内设立提前投票点。

在县一级，吉尔福德县选举委员会五名成员中的四名（包括一名民主党人）批准了一项不包括校园选址的方案。州选举委员会确认了这一决定。

选举官员表示，中期选举期间校园内没有提前投票的先例，因此从技术上讲，学生的投票权并未受到限制。

但领导此次竞选活动的学生之一罗齐尔认为，过去中期选举的做法不应该影响今年秋季的选举结果。

22岁的罗齐尔表示，她和其他积极参与名为“保护我们的北卡罗来纳州”（Protect Ours NC）学生团体的成员不会因此放弃今年秋季的投票。他们正在为10月15日提前投票开始前筹集资金，以便租用班车接送学生前往最近的投票站。

罗齐尔说：“如果不投票，我们就无法改变投票方式。”

CNN的Dianne Gallagher和Renee Rigdon对本报道亦有贡献。