(The Center Square) – Two bills that have passed in the Senate could be heard for votes in the House of Representatives this week in the North Carolina General Assembly.
Election Law Changes (House Bill 958) and SBOE Administrative Changes (House Bill 834) have, in the former, changes to days to vote early in person in primaries and, in the latter, measures about ballot counting and missing signatures of voters. Both chambers convened Monday without any action taking place on the legislation.
SBOE is the acronym for State Board of Elections.
Election Law Changes is calendared for Tuesday in the House. Almost all its provisions take effect Jan. 1 if it becomes law.
The proposal would change early in-person voting periods for primaries, primary runoffs and special elections to 10 days rather than 17.
The bill also requires use of federal databases and information from other states to help remove deceased voters from the rolls. And the state auditor’s office would conduct post-election audits of county election systems at least once every six years.
“No findings in audits under this section shall be used as grounds to challenge the final result of an election,” said Sen. Warren Daniel, R-Burke, amid the floor debate.
Rather, the analysis would be of voter list maintenance, voting equipment tests, ballot records, chain-of-custody documentation, and handling of absentee and provisional ballots.
North Carolina in 2023 expressly, through the state budget, rejected joining the Electronic Registration Information Center that Senate Democrats pushed in last week’s debate. The state uses data sharing agreements with the federal SAVE database and North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles.
SAVE is an acronym for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements. It is run by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
In SBOE Administrative Changes, also calendared for Tuesday in the House, was unanimously approved. The language focuses on ballot processing, absentee-ballot delivery and judicial review of decisions by the State Board of Elections.
