Submitted by Jay Delancy, Voter Integrity Project/NCEIT
There have been a lot of complaints about the recent SBE "Top Ten" fact list about voter ID and I've had to explain that the email is an accurate representation of our voter ID law, as written by David Lewis and passed in both chambers with a veto-proof majority.
Page 53 of the recent NC Supreme Court ruling which reinstated SB 824, which was also known as State Law 2018-144 (SL 2018-144). All of the bad provisions in that law were hacked out between the GA and Kim Strach, a McCrory appointee as Executive Director of the State Board of Elections (SBE).
As much as we hated the bill, there was one provision that made me extremely happy: Statewide at-large poll observers. You can read all about it, starting at the top of page 14 in SL 2018-144. Here is the key sentence: " The chair of each political party in the State shall have the right to designate up to 100 additional at-large observers who are residents of the State who may attend any voting place in the State." Since this law is officially in force, I suggest it would be a useful exercise to target a few key municipal races in counties that historically have a hard time recruiting Republican poll observers. Robseon and Durham come to mind the quickest, but I'm sure Jane has some problem counties in WNC. Before Covid killed him, the late Sen RL Clark used to carry on about Yancey County