NEW HANOVER COUNTY — The terms of New Hanover County Board of Elections members will expire later this month, but per a recently passed state law, their replacements won’t arrive until a month later, leaving the elections office without a board.
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On Monday, June 2, New Hanover County Board of Elections Director Rae Hunter-Havens wrote an email questioning how the board prefers to move forward ahead of the five-member board’s terms ending on June 24.
This comes one month before a new hard deadline has been put into place to swear in board of election appointees, per Senate Bill 382.
Senate Bill 382 passed in December and has already shook up election procedures across the state. Though championed as a Hurricane Helene relief bill, the 132-page bill shifts several election processes to favor Republican lawmakers, including shifting oversight and appointment authority over the state board and county board chairs from the governor, Democrat Josh Stein, to the state auditor, Republican Dave Boliek. The move is currently being challenged in court.
S.B. 382 didn’t change when new board members would be appointed, which is the last Tuesday in June. It did, however, add language requiring new members to be sworn in on the Tuesday closest to the third Monday in July — this year being July 22.
In her email to the board, Hunter-Havens pointed out the new swearing in requirement creates “a gap from June 25 to July 22 when no board can act.”
She then questioned if the board would like to cancel their July 15 meeting, as there won’t be a board in place to conduct it.
One board member replied that he would not consent to that.
“I can not vote to disable the future board for a month,” Republican board member Bruce Kemp wrote back, adding guidance from North Carolina State Board of Elections general counsel Paul Cox makes “no sense.”
Shared with Port City Daily by Hunter-Havens, Cox explained even though the new board members’ terms will start on June 25, they will not be able to take official actions until they are sworn in on July 22.
Before S.B. 382, state law didn’t dictate when a board was sworn in; in his emailed guidance, Cox said old board members have held over in their positions, if their replacement could not immediately take oath.
In her email to the board, Hunter-Havens said the State Board of Elections suggested the board conduct any urgent business before June 24 in anticipation of the four-week dead period. According to the New Hanover County BOE director, Cox also recommended canceling or rescheduling the New Hanover County board’s July 15 meeting.
Kemp disagreed, saying the board should call a special meeting for June 25 for the new board to be sworn in immediately; however, this would run afoul of S.B. 382, which Democratic board chair Derrick Miller pointed out in a follow-up email.
Miller added in his email: “The result seems absurd (as I think you seem to indicate) but also founded in statute. My non-expert take is that this might be an indication that a law was written in too hasty a manner.”
Aside from attracting lawsuits, the passage of S.B. 382 — which took only 24 hours to pass both chambers — has also caused Republican lawmakers to launch bills rescinding some of its provisions, though none election-related. The last page of the law removes local governments’ abilities to initiate downzoning amendments, or reducing permitted uses for a property, and several GOP lawmakers tried to walk it back due to complaints of overreach into a municipality’s governing authority.
The implications of a month-long leaderless board of elections is unclear, though Kemp raised some concerns. He pointed out the municipal election candidate filing period is July 7 through 18 and it would be “irresponsible to have no board members during that time.”
Hunter-Havens told Port City Daily the NHC Board of Elections typically does not have any responsibilities during the candidate-filing period that the new law would automatically disrupt. Voter registration, candidate filings and other operations of the elections office will still continue, though the board would not be there to turn to if something unexpected were to occur.
Additionally, the county’s new fiscal year begins on July 1. As of right now, more than $200,000 in additional funding is included on top of the board of elections funding amount from last year. The additional money is inclusive of a new voting services manager, elections registration coordinator, elections education and communications coordinator and three part-time administrative assistants.
Kemp pointed out these new positions couldn’t be hired until the board were to return from hiatus in late July.
“New staff hiring process needs to start asap and any board approvals should not be deferred,” Kemp said.
As for chair Miller, he told PCD he is largely in the dark when it comes to the reasoning behind and interpretation of S.B. 382.
“I do not know why the General Assembly added that last provision in the new law,” he said, referring to the date for taking the oath. “I have seen no explanation for it. I do not know what the impact will be. This is a new thing.”
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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