Cooper vetoes election bill, setting up another legislative showdown

North Carolina Democratic Governor Roy Cooper vetoed a sweeping elections bill Thursday, setting up another showdown with Republican lawmakers.

Senate Bill 747 would get rid of the current three-day grace period for mail-in ballots postmarked by election day, moving the acceptance deadline from the current Friday after an election to Election Day evening. It would also allow more partisan poll observers at voting locations, and require a 10-county pilot test of signature verification software for absentee mail-in ballots.

Republican lawmakers — who hold a veto-busting supermajority in both chambers of the General Assembly — have said the legislation is needed to increase confidence in election results. They’re expected to override the veto when they return to Raleigh for a budget vote in September.

“This legislation has nothing to do with election security and everything to do with Republicans keeping and gaining power,” Cooper said in a statement. “It requires valid votes to be tossed out unnecessarily, schemes to restrict early voting and absentee ballots, encourages voter intimidation and attempts to give Republican legislators the authority to decide contested election results.”

The bill passed along party lines earlier in August.

"We think it is responsible legislation that puts in place the appropriate election integrity safeguards, implements the voter ID that the people of this state went to the polls and overwhelmingly approved," said House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland. "So I'm disappointed the governor vetoed it, but I understand we have a difference of opinion."

In his video announcement, Cooper said Republicans "really do not want you to vote: if you're a young person, a college students away from home, or a Black or Brown citizen.

"They know that you can change the outcome of elections," Cooper said. "So they're making it harder for you to vote, hoping that you won't bother."

Moore called those statements "false."

"When someone can't argue the facts of the bill, they just make up other things," Moore said. "The reality is we want everyone who is legally a citizen to vote. We want them to vote. We want them to have a photo ID."

Melissa Price Kromm, the director of NC Voters for Clean Elections, echoed Cooper, saying the effort may only sow more distrust among voters.

“These things are all a part of a kind of national election-denier narrative, and they're very harmful to voters in our state,” Kromm told WRAL News. Her group sent Cooper a letter asking him to veto the legislation.

If the bill had been in place in 2020, Kromm said, thousands of mail-in ballots would have been thrown out.

Republican legislative leaders have said they believe fewer mail-in ballots will come in after Election Day if voters are educated about the new, earlier deadline.

“Folks have plenty of notice and should have knowledge that if they're going to vote absentee, they need to make sure that they get their ballots in so that they will be received by the board of elections on time,” Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, told reporters last week.

Kromm says that lacking a state budget, there’s no money allocated for the State Elections Board to launch a public information campaign about the change. Lawmakers are still negotiating the annual spending plan.

Election boards bill

Cooper also said he would veto Senate Bill 749 if it arrives at his desk as drafted. The bill, a sweeping overhaul of the election board system across the state, would give authority to county commissioners, instead of county elections boards, to choose the county's election director.

It has passed the Senate, but not the House.

SB749 is similar to other GOP-backed changes to overhaul the elections board in recent years. The others failed — either ruled unconstitutional in court, or shot down at the ballot box by voters. Republican lawmakers said they want to try again, for the sake of election integrity.

“It’s incontrovertible that we’re living in a time of severe partisan polarization, and that affects voters’ perception of election fairness,” Sen. Paul Newton, R-Cabarrus, said in July. “When you have an elections board that’s controlled by one party, roughly half of the voters are going to question and doubt the fairness of the elections — and, in some cases, the outcome.”

A bipartisan group of county election board members said in a letter to lawmakers last month that the proposals to change state elections laws would have a negative impact on election integrity and public confidence.

Cooper on Thursday called it “a backdoor maneuver to limit early voting and satisfy the Republican legislature’s quest for more power to decide contested elections.”

The legislation would also give the legislature, not the governor, the authority to appoint members of the state board of elections. Republicans and Democrats would be allowed to appoint an even number of members.

"It's important that there not be a partisan advantage on the state board of elections," Moore said. "Make it even, just like it is at the federal level. In terms of composition, I like the idea of the legislative branch — closest to the people — making that decision."

WRAL News Reporter Brian Murphy contributed to this article.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly reported what Cooper vetoed Thursday. He vetoed Senate bill Senate Bill 747. He said he would veto Senate Bill 749 if it arrives at his desk as drafted.