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Read our AI Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n North Carolina House Republicans on Tuesday advanced a sweeping elections and voting bill as protesters descended on the legislature, accusing lawmakers of suppressing the vote.<\/p>\n Read more Canes Stanley Cup parade 2026: See timing, Raleigh route details & map<\/a><\/p>\n The 36-page bill<\/a> includes a grab bag of conservative policies, including banning election officials from encouraging voter turnout, banning ranked-choice voting statewide, and empowering the Republican state auditor to investigate election conduct in counties of his choice.<\/p>\n Republicans in the House Elections Committee advanced the bill, House Bill 958, Tuesday morning without taking public comment, prompting chants of \u201cshame\u201d from the dozens who showed up in opposition.<\/p>\n Lawmakers were expected to take another vote on the bill in the House Rules Committee Tuesday afternoon, but it was pulled from the calendar just as the meeting began. Wayne County Republican Rep. John Bell, the committee\u2019s chair, told reporters afterward that more changes needed to be made to the legislation before it reached a vote.<\/p>\n Rep. Hugh Blackwell, a Burke County Republican and the bill\u2019s sponsor, said he expected HB 958 to reach a floor vote by Wednesday but that it was a \u201cwork in progress\u201d likely to be amended.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not trying to put up obstacles, so much as to do what we can to improve integrity of the voting process,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Democrats in Tuesday\u2019s committee hearing roundly rejected the bill, except for Rep. Shelly Willingham, a moderate who lost his primary election in March. If Democratic Gov. Josh Stein were to ultimately veto HB 958, House Republicans would only need to convince one Democrat or one of two unaffiliated representatives to vote with them in order to override the veto.<\/p>\n HB 958 combines a massive suite of largely unrelated election provisions, some of which appear motivated by former Republican Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin\u2019s unsuccessful effort to overturn his 2024 election loss.<\/p>\n These include restricting the voting rights of so-called \u201cNever Residents<\/a>\u201d which are the adult children of North Carolinians who were born abroad and never established residency in the state. The bill would also require overseas voters to submit a photocopy of their identification with their absentee ballot.<\/p>\n Republicans introduced the first version of HB 958 last year, which included many of the same provisions. The bill never made it to a floor vote, though, and laid dormant until lawmakers released a new version late last week.<\/p>\n One of the new provisions would empower State Auditor Dave Boliek, a Republican, to conduct post-election audits in counties of his choice \u2014 a proposal critics say could lead to political decisions.<\/p>\n \u201cThe auditor is a partisan-elected office, he is a partisan actor,\u201d Rep. Phil Rubin, a Wake County Democrat, said. \u201c… He can now say, after an election, \u2018My candidate didn\u2019t do well in this district,\u2019 or he could say, \u2018I personally didn\u2019t do well in this county\u2019 and he can pick that county for an audit afterward.\u201d<\/p>\n He also noted that Boliek has personally campaigned for candidates in the past, most recently, Republican Senate leader Phil Berger, who lost his primary election in March.<\/p>\n Hayes, speaking to reporters after the hearing, said he did not have any concerns about Boliek\u2019s impartiality and noted that the bill specifies that his post-election audits could not be used to challenge the final results of an election.<\/p>\n Other provisions included in HB 958 include:<\/p>\n While dozens of protesters entered the legislative building in advance of the bill\u2019s hearing, another group gathered outside, joined by state Democratic Chair Anderson Clayton, to hold a press conference opposing the bill.<\/p>\n Read more 5 of the best outdoor ice cream shops in the Triangle for a hot summer day<\/a><\/p>\n Clayton told reporters that Republican lawmakers should be more focused on passing the state\u2019s nearly one-year overdue comprehensive budget rather than altering elections law.<\/p>\n \u201cThis legislature is so afraid of the voters that they represent right now that they would rather do something like this than actually see how they feel about the policies that they\u2019re pushing through in Raleigh\u2026(and) face that ballot box in November,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Clayton mentioned recent reports of State Board of Elections members being pressured to vote against a polling site at Western Carolina University<\/a>, calling it \u201chyper polarization.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNorth Carolinians want enfranchisement in our ballot box access, not disenfranchisement, which we continuously see out of this building here behind me,\u201d Clayton told The News & Observer.<\/p>\n Clayton was joined by Mondale Robinson, mayor of Enfield, a town in Halifax County. Robinson said that this bill would complicate voting for the residents of his rural, majority Black town, who already struggle to make it to the polls because of work obligations.<\/p>\n Robinson told The N&O that the bill\u2019s restrictions on local boards of elections encouraging voter turnout could jeopardize Halifax County\u2019s progress at the polls. Since Robinson has been in office, he said, the county has seen significant increases to youth voter turnout.<\/p>\n \u201cI think for me, we\u2019re not hoping that Republicans get a conscience today. What we are doing, though, we\u2019re going to sound the alarm,\u201d Robinson told The N&O. \u201cWe\u2019re going to continue to sound the alarm as a Democratic Party of North Carolina, as concerned people across the state. We\u2019re obligated to fight even when we are in the minority.\u201d<\/p>\n Clayton also spoke at length about former Rep. Sarah Stevens, a Republican lawmaker representing Surry and Wilkes counties, who recently announced her resignation<\/a> to focus on her campaign for state Supreme Court against Associate Justice Anita Earls.<\/p>\n \u201cFew people have done as much as she has to restrict the right to vote and predetermine the outcomes of elections in North Carolina,\u201d Clayton said.<\/p>\n Stevens chairs the House Election Committee, but she did not show up to the hearing on the HB 958. Her resignation is effective Tuesday at noon.<\/p>\n Tuesday\u2019s bill comes just over a year after Republicans took control of North Carolina\u2019s state and local election boards due to controversial legislation passed in the final days of their veto-proof supermajority in the legislature.<\/p>\n Republican lawmakers stripped Democratic Gov. Josh Stein of his appointments to these boards and transferred them to State Auditor Dave Boliek, making him the only auditor in the country with election oversight powers.<\/p>\n When the law took effect in May of last year, Boliek promptly appointed a Republican majority to the State Board of Elections, a move which led to the ousting of the board\u2019s longtime executive director<\/a>, Karen Brinson Bell. The new Republican majority replaced her with Hayes, a lawyer who previously worked for House Speaker Destin Hall and his predecessor, Tim Moore.<\/p>\n