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Read our AI Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n New text messages released as part of a demand letter<\/a> to the North Carolina state auditor\u2019s office show Dallas Woodhouse, the agency\u2019s election liaison who recently resigned,<\/a> acknowledging that his efforts to cut Sunday voting across the state would face public backlash.<\/p>\n Read more NC scientists are studying Triangle deer. Here’s how their findings could be used.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe are going to get (expletive) removing Sundays in so many places,\u201d Woodhouse, who previously led the state GOP, wrote in a May 29 text to a Republican member of the Lee County Board of Elections.<\/p>\n In the message, which was released as part of a public records request<\/a> made by veteran voting rights activist Bob Hall, Woodhouse counsels the board to add an additional Saturday during the early voting period with expanded hours.<\/p>\n \u201cThe overall increase in hours makes it easier to sell plus it is better for voters,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Speaking to The News & Observer, Woodhouse said he had no position as to ending or keeping Sunday voting, but acknowledged it has been a contentious issue for years.<\/p>\n \u201cThis issue has been a battleground for 18 years,\u201d he said, referring to when early voting first gained popularity in North Carolina. \u201cWe heard from our counties very early on, and we saw in the primaries that they had a desire to get rid of Sundays for a lot of reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n Woodhouse noted that the 2026 primary election, the first since election boards flipped to Republican control, featured more total weekend hours than the last comparable election.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that will be the case again in the 2026 general election compared to the 2022 general election \u2014 that\u2019s a fact,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019ll be more voting locations, more voting hours, more voting opportunities, and likely even more weekend voting hours.<\/p>\n \u201cIf that\u2019s an effort to suppress votes, we are horrid at it.\u201d<\/p>\n The new messages are shown in screenshots provided by Jay Delancy, a Republican member of the Lee County board, who said that he received the texts after a phone call with Woodhouse.<\/p>\n Speaking to The N&O, Delancy said he asked Woodhouse to send him his suggestions in writing after their call.<\/p>\n \u201cHe wasn\u2019t pushy at all,\u201d Delancy said. \u201cHe was suggesting an idea, and I asked him to send it to me in writing \u2014 and he did \u2014 because I thought, \u2018That\u2019s a reasonable idea.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Tom Duncan, the board\u2019s chair, also responded to Hall\u2019s request with a transcript of nearly identical messages from Woodhouse, though it did not include the line about public backlash to Sunday voting cuts.<\/p>\n At its last meeting, the Lee County Board of Elections split over Sunday voting \u2014 meaning their early voting plan will now be decided by the State Board of Elections.<\/p>\n Woodhouse\u2019s texts are referenced in a letter<\/a> from American Oversight, a left-leaning nonprofit watchdog organization focused on public records, which on Wednesday accused the auditor\u2019s office of failing to comply with its records requests.<\/p>\n The group said that it has filed three public records requests with the auditor\u2019s office related to Woodhouse\u2019s role as elections liaison \u2014 a new position created by State Auditor Dave Boliek<\/a> after state lawmakers gave him control over appointments to election boards.<\/p>\n American Oversight accuses the agency of producing incomplete records, including by omitting text messages Woodhouse sent to county board members, like the one in Lee County. Those texts were never released by the auditor\u2019s office, but rather by the Lee County board itself in response to Hall\u2019s request.<\/p>\n Read more NC State women\u2019s basketball confident it can compete for hardware this season<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe note that many county elections offices \u2014 possessing far fewer resources than the OSA \u2014 have provided more complete responses to similar public records requests in recent months,\u201d American Oversight\u2019s letter says.<\/p>\n After a series of news stories published about Woodhouse\u2019s texts to election officials, American Oversight asked the auditor\u2019s office why records it turned over didn\u2019t include those texts, the letter says. A representative for the agency then told the group it had \u201crecently became aware of additional records that may be responsive,\u201d the letter says.<\/p>\n The letter goes on to demand that the auditor\u2019s office produce all records responsive to its requests by 5 p.m. on Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe public has a right to know how decisions affecting access to the ballot are being made,\u201d Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, said in a statement. \u201c… When the State Auditor\u2019s office insists responsive records involving Dallas Woodhouse do not exist, then reverses course only after media reports call that assertion into doubt, it raises serious questions about whether government officials are being truthful with the public.\u201d<\/p>\n Randy Brechbiel, a spokesperson for the auditor\u2019s office, said that American Oversight has filed 17 records requests with the agency.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s on top of every other request we receive,\u201d Brechbiel said in a statement to The N&O. \u201cWe have fully completed several records requests from a variety of individuals and organizations, including American Oversight, and continue to actively work on all outstanding requests.\u201d<\/p>\n The N&O has also filed two records requests regarding Woodhouse\u2019s role to the state auditor\u2019s office \u2014 one of which is nearly 10 months old. Neither has been fulfilled.<\/p>\n In recent months, news stories have proliferated about Woodhouse\u2019s communications with election officials \u2014 most of which have resulted from public records requests made directly to county election boards.<\/p>\n Last month, Republican officials in Jackson County said they had been pressured by the GOP and the auditor\u2019s office to reject an early voting site on Western Carolina University\u2019s campus. In texts obtained by NC Local<\/a>, Woodhouse told the chair \u201cdon\u2019t let them have a vote\u201d about the plan.<\/p>\n He told The N&O that this message was intended to encourage the board to wait until it could replace a member who resigned ahead of the vote.<\/p>\n The departing board member, Republican Wes Hanemayer, had written in his resignation letter<\/a> that his \u201cmoral position\u201d had been called into question by unnamed entities outside the board.<\/p>\n And in Pasquotank County, Woodhouse told the board chair to \u201cdrop Sunday,\u201d according to a text message obtained by Common Cause NC<\/a>, a voting rights group. His full message encouraged the county to add more total hours to the early voting plan by adding another Saturday to the schedule.<\/p>\n Woodhouse resigned from the auditor\u2019s office<\/a> earlier this month, stating that he \u201cknew my time would be short\u201d and that he planned to return to the private sector.<\/p>\n