In the waning days of North Carolina’s legislative session last year, the Republican majority tucked an unexpected measure into a bill that was nominally dedicated to storm relief. It gave the state auditor, who typically serves as a fiscal watchdog, the job of appointing the state elections board, which North Carolina governors had been responsible for since 1901.
Critics of the bill viewed it as a blatant power grab, given that the newly elected auditor was a Republican and the incoming governor, Josh Stein, a Democrat.
The law took effect on Thursday, making North Carolina the only state to give its auditor, Dave Boliek, power over an elections board. Mr. Boliek promptly nominated three Republicans to the five-member board, which had previously had a Democratic majority.
The change could be instrumental in deciding who wins a protracted legal battle over a North Carolina Supreme Court seat. The case has received national attention because of the Republican challenger’s quest to throw out thousands of votes in an attempt to reverse his election loss. A Republican-controlled elections board could interpret court rulings more favorably for the challenger, raising the chances of the election being overturned.
The law was further evidence of the bar-fight nature of politics in the state, where the Republican-controlled legislature has recently passed laws stripping power from Democratic officials, and where both parties have engaged in gerrymandering over the decades.
“I think what all this says is that brass-knuckle politics is here to stay in North Carolina — that purple-state status doesn’t lead to purple politics, but rather brass-knuckle politics,” said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C.
Mr. Stein had asked the courts to block the new law, and had won at the trial court level. But on Wednesday, the North Carolina Court of Appeals reversed that ruling, allowing Mr. Boliek to take over administration of the elections board immediately.
The board had been composed of three Democrats and two Republicans since Roy Cooper, the former Democratic governor, took office in 2017. Until now, the governor selected the chair of the board, and the state Republican and Democratic parties suggested candidates for the other four slots.
But Mr. Boliek was already making big changes on Thursday afternoon, when he announced his three Republican appointments.
The North Carolina Democratic Party said that it had sent over nominees to Mr. Boliek on Thursday, but that no Democratic appointments had been announced as of early afternoon.
Mr. Stein appealed on Thursday to the State Supreme Court, which has a 5-to-2 Republican majority. But legal experts said it was unlikely that the governor would emerge successful.
Voting rights experts expressed concern that flipping the elections board to Republican control could hand the disputed State Supreme Court seat to the Republican challenger, who has persisted with his fight despite losing two recounts.
The challenger, Judge Jefferson Griffin, lost by 734 votes in November. He is currently a judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals.
His argument is that thousands of military and overseas ballots should be tossed because those voters didn’t submit a photo ID or an ID exception form with their absentee ballots — even though they were exempt from these requirements before the election.
A central question in the case is how many military and overseas votes have to be verified. The State Board of Elections said on April 15 that it had interpreted the ruling as applying only to about 1,600 voters from Guilford County, which includes the city of Greensboro. But Judge Griffin and his lawyers are arguing that it should apply to thousands more in other counties.
With the elections board now dominated by Republicans, voting rights expert said, it could allow more ballots to be included in the verification process, which would increase the likelihood of Justice Allison Riggs, the Democratic incumbent, losing.
Mr. Stein described the situation as “a threat to our democracy and the rule of law.”
In a statement, Mr. Boliek thanked the new appointees, adding, “We need full confidence in our elections.”
Eduardo Medina is a Times reporter covering the South. An Alabama native, he is now based in Durham, N.C.
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