NORTH CAROLINA — A bill proposing to increase the state’s authority over elections boards and audit provisional and absentee ballots — including military — has just passed the North Carolina House of Representatives along party lines. It passed its first reading on the Senate floor on July 1.
House Bill 958, an omnibus bill to change election laws, was taken up June 30, with a 66-47 vote moving it forward. First filed in April 2025, it has gone through four other drafts since.
The latest iteration has more than a dozen provisions in it. Chief among them: giving additional power to the state auditor, a partisan office currently held by Republican Dave Boliek, to review county elections boards randomly; requiring the state board check every absent and provisional ballot instead of doing only a sample; and giving voters and county boards more time to correct voter registration.
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It’s sponsored by Representative Hugh Blackwell (R-Burke) and former representative Sarah Stevens (R-Surry, Wilkes), who resigned on June 16 to run for the NC Supreme Court. On the House floor Tuesday, Blackwell said: “This bill has been knocking around for well over a year since we first introduced it. Been through a number of drafts, so I think most of the provisions in here are fairly broadly understood or known of.”
In 2025, it was first put forth in an effort to standardize elections procedures and ensure accountability in elections; however, many have called out the bill’s goal to also curb voter fraud, which many Democrats called an inexistant problem.
The nonpartisan Brookings Institute notes that the rate of voter fraud is less than 0.01% of total mail ballots cast countrywide. And according to right-wing thinktank Heritage Foundation’s voter fraud database, there have only been 123 voter fraud cases in the state of North Carolina since 1986.
“It adds this new complicated system of challenges, and audits, and database matches, and legal traps, traps that will fall, not on the imaginary fraudsters that don’t exist, but on real eligible voters,” Rep. Phil Rubin (D-Wake) said.
Blackwell said most of the proposed regulations and points — “if not all” — were recommended by the State Board of Elections, which became GOP-led in early 2025 after the state auditor was given authority over choosing the state election board members. Blackwell also described the bill as a bipartisan effort, pointing to Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford) and Rubin’s involvement, though later noted he didn’t think they would vote in favor of the bill because of disagreements about more restrictive voter identification methods and restrictions at polling sites.
New Hanover County Rep. Deb Butler voted against the bill while representatives Ted Davis and Charlie Miller voted in favor. Brunswick County’s Frank Iler and Pender County’s Carson Smith also voted in favor.
Democratic lawmakers argued the bill gives the auditor, a partisan elected official, greater oversight of election administration, which they described as a conflict of interest.
Should the bill pass, Boliek would conduct annual, randomized audits of each county board’s processes, with every county board being reviewed at least every six years. These audits would be in addition to the State Board of Elections and county boards’ reviews after elections.
Audits that flag issues will result in corrective action as dictated by the auditor. In cases where laws have been broken, the bill states the auditor will refer the issue to the relevant legal channels. However, the findings cannot be used to change final election results.
“The auditor already had an enormous amount of power,” Rep. Robert Reives II (D-Chatham, Randolph) said.
The bill also requires the State Board of Elections to conduct a statewide post-election audit focused on provisional and absentee ballots.
H.B. 958 mandates county boards of election cross-reference every absentee and provisional ballot with federal databases holding voter and resident information, and challenge a voter’s eligibility if issues are flagged. The bill stipulates challenges to voter eligibility by the state would be overseen in a hearing by outside counsel hired by the State Board of Elections rather than by the attorney general, which is a reduction of authority since the AG typically represents the state.
The bill would also allow the Executive Director to convert seven senior State Board positions to exempt status, making those employees easier to replace and allowing future leadership to appoint much of the agency’s senior staff. Career state employees are granted certain rights following employment termination under the State Human Resources Act, including allowing grievance hearings and appeals. Positions now exempt from these protections include: general counsel, assistant general counsel, the HR director, legislative affairs manager, public information manager, internal auditor and administrative officer. Democrats argued senior officials could be fired and replaced with political appointees.
The bill undos some of the provisions in Senate Bill 382, which passed in December 2024 and shortened deadlines in the elections process, including the window for voters to “cure” lacking mail-in or provisional ballots from nine days to three.
H.B. 958 now gives county boards five business days, as opposed to three, to verify provisional ballots, cure certain absentee ballot problems, receive voter ID for provisional ballots and correct registration issues; voters will also have five business days after the election to correct voter registration information. It grants more authority to county boards to remove voting precinct officials from their position upon discovery of misconduct.
Another provision allows early voting ballots to be counted sooner than Election Day, prior to the closure of polls. Typically, early voting ballots are counted at 8 p.m. on Election Day.
The bill had three amendments presented in succession; the first resulted in the removal of a section that prohibited election board officials from expressing the party they’re affiliated with or candidates they support. It was unanimously approved for removal due to concerns of being too restrictive of election officials’ activities.
The second amendment, proposed by Blackwell, was an addition to increase restrictions on noises, demonstrations or behaviors at polling precincts that could “disrupt or disturb” election proceedings. Rubin opposed it on the House floor and argued the bill could be considered an infringement of people’s First Amendment rights.
“Democracy is noisy,” he said. “That is a fact about democracy. It is messy, and it is noisy; and our First Amendment rights protect that and they enshrine that.”
The amendment passed 71-42, Republicans in favor; this would make demonstrations prohibited outside of voting or elections sites, among other activities which could create a loud noise. Violation of this section would result in a Class 2 misdemeanor which includes up to 60 days in jail.
The third amendment was proposed by Rep. Allison Dahle (D-Wake). She suggested cutting everything after page 8, which would include additional verification processes, the post-election randomized audits and the demonstration prohibition. The amendment failed 47-66.
Democrats argued the bill was an attempt to retain seats in the state legislature, with some noting the higher chance of Democrats winning Republican seats.
“It does feel like we’re trying to control elections,” Reives House Democratic Party Leader, said on the floor.
He further questioned why Republicans thought the state’s elections processes weren’t working when they’ve historically been successful using them.
“If I get a 15-year run, where I get 10 years in a super majority, five years where I’m darn near in the super majority, I’m not gonna tell people that the vote was broken,” Rieves said. “And it’s just wild to me, like, when is enough, enough?”
Rep. Abe Jones (D-Wake), among other opposition speakers, claimed the bill would make it harder to vote for legally registered voters, either due to increased confusion about the steps to vote or because of database errors Democratic lawmakers predicted would happen. Some Democrats pointed out working parents might be forced to undergo expensive legal proceedings to prove their eligibility.
Rubin spoke against the bill as a whole, noting in addition to being an infringement on North Carolina residents’ rights, by putting more barriers for voter identification and by questioning the validity of their votes. He thought it would jeopardize North Carolina residents, like naturalized citizens, due to searches on federal databases Rubin claimed were inaccurate and “stale.” Ultimately, he noted the bill was targeting voter fraud that didn’t exist, harming eligible voters instead of “fraudsters.”
“This bill legislates a fantasy and it chases ghosts,” he said, referring to regulating a problem that doesn’t exist.
Democrats worried the bill would deter people from voting for fear of having to undergo corrective processes to prove legitimacy.
Rep. Zack Hawkins (D-Durham) insinuated it would eliminate votes from people on the “margins,” which he suggested would be a blow to the Democratic party. He questioned the motives of the bill and suggested it was an effort to keep legislative seats.
“I would not do that to you,” Hawkins said of putting up a bill that could be viewed as targeted. “I would not take the election and try the election process and skew it in my favor.”
House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Caldwell, Watauga) cut off Hawkins for calling the integrity of fellow representatives into question before asking for the vote.
Port City Daily reached out to New Hanover County’s reps. Ted Davis and Charles Miller but did not hear a response by press. Rep. Deb Butler could not speak due to ongoing budget debates.
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