Haymaker: Election reform? Anybody on this? | Eastern North Carolina Now

By:  Brant Clifton

In 2018,  there was a lot of butt-hurt on both sides of the aisle  about alleged hanky-panky with the voting in the 9th congressional district race.  During 2020’s early voting, our state board of elections changed the rules on voting.  That’s right.  They made changes to the rules for voting WHILE voting was happening.  That year, we basically violated our own state law.

Of course, there has been all of the national concern about the integrity of the 2020 presidential race.  I’ve been skimming the House and Senate calendars from Jones Street and I’m not seeing anything that looks even remotely like election reform.  There’s not a whole lot there about COVID,  so it’s hard to use that as an excuse.

I talked with a. few of the folks who get to vote in those chambers on Jones Street about this very subject.  They told me something along the lines of: “Oh, we’ll probably take a look at that some time after we return at the end of the summer.”

In 2012,  the NCGOP was firmly in control of all three branches of state government.  This year,  the party is barely in charge of the legislative branch.   Did everyone notice what happened in Georgia, for instance, when Democrats are allowed to get creative with election law?

We even had some instances of statistically-dubious vote totals in certain races (even those that Republicans won).

The default response for lefties — when Republicans pass some kind of reform legislation — is to run to court.  Things move very slow when lawyers and judges come into the picture.  I think it would be smart to get cracking RIGHT NOW on fixing the mess that plagued our elections in 2020.  Who wants to give the Dems   anything more to celebrate?

They STILL have governor and attorney general — arguably the two most powerful posts in state government.  They’ve still got a majority on the Supreme Court. And they’re still too close for comfort on Jones Street.

Again,  if the NCGOP has ANY sense, they’ll get started NOW on fixing our elections so all of the court action and appeals have time to conclude prior to the start of the 2022 vote.  (Especially while they’ve still got a majority on Jones Street.)