Today we’re talking with Jeremy Borden, executive director of Beacon Media, a non-partisan non-profit focused on giving voice to North Carolinians working to strengthen democracy in the Tarheel State. As in Georgia, many of North Carolina’s county election boards are run by Republican election deniers. As part of my conversation with Borden I took a look at some of those board members and have updated my list of local election officials who support Trump’s lies about election fraud. I’ve also removed the paywall from the list so that new subscribers can access it. View the list here.
American Doom is one of the only publications with a complete list of local election denial officials across the country. To support this work, please choose a paid subscription or drop a few dollars in our Coffee Fund. Through Election Day, you can get 40 percent off subscriptions to American Doom. Now, on to the news… - jg
Since 2020, Republicans across the country have set out to remake how elections are run, ballots are cast, and votes are tabulated. They’ve done this in support of Donald Trump’s lies about widespread election fraud, and in some places, have been wildly successful in ensuring that Republicans have an advantage in elections.
There is perhaps no state where this scheme has been more successful than North Carolina. In the wake of Trump’s loss in 2020, Republicans in the Tarheel State began work on remaking the state’s election administration laws, rules and practices. As a result, Republicans now control all manner of election administration — ripping away power from the state’s Democratic governor — and ensuring that election deniers in place across the state have the power to close polling locations in Black and brown areas, and throw out mail-in ballots.
North Carolina is a test-case for what election administration looks like when it’s dominated by Republicans. So far, the results of this have been as expected: Republicans have closed polling locations in areas with a high percentage of Black, largely Democratic voters, making it more difficult for them to cast their ballots. Republicans have also made it easier to throw out mail-in ballots based on highly partisan challenges from election denial activists throughout the state.
Perhaps as a result of anticipated ballot challenges, requests for absentee ballots are down 30 percent compared to the 2022 midterms. This means that many North Carolinians are planning to vote in-person, and possibly at early voting locations to avoid having their votes cancelled by new mail-in ballot rules and challenges that favor Republicans.
It was Republican gerrymandering in North Carolina that helped to give the GOP a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. The legality of that redistricting could be on the table if Democrat Justice Anita Earls holds off her Republican opponent to retain her seat on the state’s Supreme Court.
Despite these efforts, voters in North Carolina have rebuffed Republicans. They elected a Democratic governor last year. Now, Republicans are pulling funding from North Carolina as U.S. senate candidate Michael Whatley trails in the latest polls by 12 points to his Democratic opponent, former governor Roy Cooper.
Listen to our full conversation, watch the discussion on American Doom’s YouTube or Apple and Spotify podcasts.
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