NC Republicans unveil sweeping elections bill. Could it ‘purge’ nonpartisan staff?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- HB 958 allows 25 Board of Elections roles to shift from nonpartisan to appointee.
- Bill proposes absentee count deadline changes, bans ranked choice voting statewide.
- Democrats criticize bill for limiting election officials' ability to promote turnout.
North Carolina House Republicans unveiled a broad elections bill that could convert about a third of the State Board of Elections’ nonpartisan civil service staff into political appointees, alongside a host of other changes to ballot counting, voter ID and more.
Lawmakers released the amended bill, House Bill 958, late Wednesday night and pushed it through a 30-minute committee hearing without public comment on Thursday morning over the objections of Democrats, who said it would lead to a “purge” of the agency.
Rep. Phil Rubin, a Wake County Democrat, said the bill would exempt the agency from “the rule that you have to hire the best person for the job and that you can’t hire and fire based on politics — and I cannot think of an agency where that is more important than the Board of Elections.”
The bill is unlikely to get a full vote anytime soon as the legislature plans for an extended summer recess. But it could emerge as a key piece of legislation — and source of debate — once lawmakers return.
It comes just a month after Republicans gained a majority on the State Board of Elections and ousted longtime Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell, replacing her with a lawyer who has worked for the state’s top Republican lawmakers.
If the bill passes, the new director, Sam Hayes, would gain the ability to make 25 positions within the agency exempt from the State Human Resources Act — allowing him to hire and fire them at will.
Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Hayes rejected the idea that the bill would lead to a purge, saying instead that it would ensure he “can put people in these positions that align with my vision for the agency — that is not a partisan vision.
“There are a number of things I’ve laid out that I would think that anybody, Democrat, Republican or independent or third party could could get on board with,” he said. “... Watch what we do here before you pre-judge it. I have not made any drastic changes and what I’m looking to do is to make elections more efficient, more secure and most importantly, follow the law.”
In addition to the staffing changes, the bill also makes a wide variety of amendments to existing election law. Many of these provisions got limited debate time due to the short committee meeting, prompting Democrats to unsuccessfully seek to delay a vote.
HB 958 softens some ballot counting deadlines passed last year in Senate Bill 382, a controversial power shift bill passed in the final days of the lame duck legislature’s veto-proof Republican supermajority.
The bill would give counties more time to count absentee and provisional ballots — though still significantly less than they had before SB 382.
Thursday’s bill would also ban ranked choice voting statewide, a practice that has never been widely implemented in North Carolina but was recently in the news following the New York City mayoral election and the apparent primary win of Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani.
HB 958 would also clarify state law to say that a voter’s ballot cannot be counted if they die between the time their ballot was cast and 6:30 a.m. on Election Day. This matter drew controversy in the November election after Wake and Rowan counties counted some votes from people who died before Election Day.
Another provision in the bill would ban state and county election board members from making partisan political statements — a policy largely already in place. However, Democrats took issue with another portion of this section that appears to prohibit elections officials from encouraging voters to turn out for elections — even in a nonpartisan way.
“We don’t want to encourage turnout for a particular candidate, but just at large, I think that we would like for our county and elections administrators to promote voting,” Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Guilford County Democrat, said.
Rep. Hugh Blackwell, a Burke County Republican and the committee’s chair, said the section was intentional but that changes may come in future versions of the bill.
“The idea is that we want the state board to focus on the conduct of the election and that the responsibility for turnout is better handled by other folks,” he said. “We were trying to draw a line and we may not have gotten it just at the sweet spot.”
The bill also addressed an issue brought about during Jefferson Griffin’s unsuccessful six-month legal battle to overturn his loss in the 2024 state Supreme Court election.
It would clarify that military and overseas voters are required to provide photo ID to vote. These voters were previously exempted from the requirement, prompting Griffin to challenge thousands of these ballots from voters in Democratic-leaning counties.
Thursday is the last day of legislative action before lawmakers leave for a summer recess following the failure of House and Senate Republicans to agree on a comprehensive state budget.
This story was originally published June 26, 2025 at 10:47 AM with the headline "NC Republicans unveil sweeping elections bill. Could it ‘purge’ nonpartisan staff?."
