Old North News

The North Carolina Republican Party (NCGOP) has formed an Election Integrity Committee “to ensure that the 2022 elections in North Carolina remain fair and transparent,” NCGOP Chairman Michael Whatley told the Carolina Journal.

The committee, supported in part by election-reform laws moving in the General Assembly, is working to allay voter concerns over the security of the 2022 elections.

The Carolina Journal cites a John Locke Foundation poll that showed that voter integrity is second only to jobs and the economy in importance to voters – more important than health care, immigration and education. About 60% of Republicans, and 40% of all those surveyed in the poll, worry that the 2022 elections will not be “free and fair.”

The Senate’s Redistricting and Elections Committee recently cleared three voter integrity bills. Senate Bill 326 will establish Election Day as the deadline for receiving all absentee ballots. Senate Bill 725 will ban local election officials from accepting private funds to help underwrite the cost of administering elections, and Senate Bill 724 will establish voter ID for all voters.

The infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars in private funds in the administration of elections running up to the November 2020 general election as a pretense for ensuring safe and fair elections during the pandemic has been criticized as a veiled get-out-the-vote campaign for the Democratic Party.

In 2013, the North Carolina General Assembly did approve a voter ID law, but it was struck down by the state’s courts. A majority of states require some form of voter ID, as do nearly all European countries.

The majority of voters, moreover, supports election-law reform, including voter ID requirements.

According to the Honest Elections Project, 64% of all voters, including black (51%) and Hispanic (66%) voters, as well as urban (59%) and Independent (61%) voters, want to increase voting safeguards that mitigate fraud – not do away with them.

The Honest Elections Project also found that 85% of registered voters agreed it is “common sense” to mandate photo IDs.