(The Center Square) – Expected since Friday’s forwarding from Jones Street, election legislation passed by both chambers of the General Assembly will get a veto from the governor.
Senate Bill 747 makes various changes to election law. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, in a release Thursday morning, says he will reject it because it makes it harder to vote for certain demographics of people. Lawmakers, led by the Republican majority, say it strengthens integrity in the election process.
Cooper’s veto may have weight only with Democrats in the lawmaking body and some voters. When passed in each chamber, there were no Democrats in support and no Republicans against SB747. There are enough Republicans in each chamber to the number when all are present – Senate 30, House 72 – for the three-fifths majority required to override a veto.
In an Elon University poll of more than 1,200 of the state’s voters released Nov. 2, election integrity was split along party lines. Only 45% of Democrats said they are “very” confident in the election process to be fair; it was 14% for Republicans. Those saying they were “not at all” confident in the process being fair included 23% of Republicans, 6% of Democrats, and unaffiliated voters were between the two.
The polling had ±3% margin of error.
SB747 would make Election Day the deadline for county boards of elections to receive absentee ballots, a move that aligns with 30 other states. Other provisions ban private funding in elections, remove noncitizens from voter rolls, increase retention of election records to 22 months, and require bipartisan representation of election officials in early voting sites.
“It requires valid votes to be tossed out unnecessarily, schemes to restrict early voting and absentee ballots, encourages voter intimidation and attempts to give Republican legislators the authority to decide contested election results,” Cooper said in a release.
As it moved through the chambers, Iredell Republican Rep. Grey Mills, chairman of the House elections committee, said, “All of the sections in the whole bill is aimed at improving our elections, improving the integrity of our elections, and helping our elections work better for everybody in North Carolina.”
Cooper said if Senate Bill 749 reaches his desk as drafted, it too would be vetoed. This legislation would take away the gubernatorial authority to appoint members of the election boards in all 100 counties and change their membership from five with favor to the party in the Executive Mansion to four, with each legislative chamber leader for Democrats and Republicans able to create a balanced panel without either party having favor. Unaffiliated voters could also be chosen.
In North Carolina, as of Saturday, the largest registered voter bloc of more than 7.3 million is unaffiliated (36.2%). Democrats (33%) have trended down, and Republicans (30.1%) have trended up, while the unaffiliated group has had the most significant growth since the 2018 midterms.
