NC State Board of Elections deals with election denialism

Seven of North Carolina’s midterm candidates continue to deny the results of the last presidential election without verifiable evidence and their constituents are banding together to ensure that next week’s election is free of fraud. Hundreds have joined so-called election integrity groups and their impacts on election officials across the Tar Heel State are already being felt.

In North Carolina, there have been a total of 70 voter fraud cases referred to prosecutors stemming from the 2020 general election. Not all led to prosecutions, and they form a minuscule percentage of the 5.5 million voters who cast ballots statewide. And yet the North Carolina Election Integrity Team with 750 members and more than 1,200 poll observers has a stated goal to monitor state and local level races.

State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell says the methods being used are concerning.

“The level of public records requests that we have received since 2020 has been such a burden,” says Bell. “It’s almost as if there’s a denial-of-service attempt on our election offices to keep us from being able to do the work. Because they are duplicative, they are copy-and-paste type record requests. There’s certainly a concerted effort to try and overburden the county offices.”

Bell says those numbers have doubled year over year since 2020, and they don’t include data requests. At the same time, she adds, the state board has less staff than they had for that election year.

This increased skepticism among some voters about the electoral process has led to record numbers of poll observers across North Carolina. Bell says these developments have created the need to provide enhanced de-escalation training for poll workers — especially considering cases of overzealous observers and campaigners during the primary election who intentionally interfered with the voting process.

“So, when these observers are going out there, they’re questioning the very people that their own political party may have put forward,” says Bell. “And this distrust is just really disconcerting. We have got to get back to a time of civility.”

Bell says all North Carolinians should be working toward people being able to vote freely and fairly, safely and securely exercising their right, something that state elections officials have done, and will continue to do, for years.