NC’s top Republican doesn’t trust the governor to run a fair 2020 mail-in election. Really.

A battle is emerging in Washington and across the country about a large-scale expansion of mail-in voting in November’s elections. In North Carolina, the conversation just got especially ugly.

In a statement to the Editorial Board on Thursday about expanding mail-in voting here, Senate leader Phil Berger said he was concerned not only about voter fraud, but that he didn’t trust Gov. Roy Cooper and his state Board of Elections wouldn’t rig the election.

“There is zero trust that this process would be fair and transparent,” he said.

It’s a unfortunate statement, one that should sadden and alarm voters who already face uncertainty over what the November election might look like. Now, Berger’s comments raise additional concerns about whether Democrats and Republicans can come together to provide the infrastructure necessary for safe voting that’s accessible to everyone.

Similar questions hang over elections across the country. Despite health officials believing that mail-in ballots are an effective way to make voting safer amid the COVID-19 threat, the president and some Republican allies are launching an aggressive strategy to fight a mail-in expansion, the New York Times reported this week. On Wednesday, Trump tweeted that state-wide mail-in voting has “tremendous potential for voter fraud,” and “shouldn’t be allowed!”

That looming tension prompted our initial questions Thursday of Berger. What, we wondered, did he think about funding the infrastructure to accommodate a mail-in surge or, as some states are doing, getting ballots out proactively to N.C. voters?

His 436-word answer acknowledged that state leaders “need to look at consensus actions that will prepare our state for the possibility of voting during a pandemic.” It also cautioned against rolling back mail-in ballot rules lawmakers passed in the wake of the 2018 NC-09 U.S. House election, which was tainted by widespread absentee ballot fraud in Bladen and Robeson counties. Then it turned its attention to the governor, whom Berger said has fought fiercely to achieve full partisan control over the state Board of Elections.

“All of this raises natural and legitimate suspicions about the motives of the Governor and the Board he controls,” Berger wrote. “Those same suspicions raise alarm bells at the prospect of a partisan Board of Elections controlling a process in which they ostensibly send ballots to every voter. There is zero trust that this process would be fair and transparent.”

Was Berger preemptively accusing the governor of rigging the election? No, said Berger spokesman Pat Ryan. The senator doesn’t expect Cooper to rig the election, Ryan said, but Berger doesn’t trust that the governor and his board of elections would conduct it fairly. That’s a distinction, maybe, but not much of one.

Maybe Berger’s statement isn’t that stunning. Maybe there’s an underlying assumption - or at least a suspicion - that everyone behaves in partisan fashion these days, even in elections. The president certainly has voiced that suspicion - saying before and after the 2016 election that the other side cheated.

It’s also true that Cooper and N.C. Republicans have a years-long history of mistrust and power struggles, some of which have ended up in court. But for North Carolina’s most powerful Republican to publicly say he doesn’t trust the state’s most powerful Democrat to run a fair election? It’s a reminder of how poisoned our discourse has become, and it shows the steep hill our leaders face to meet this COVID-19 election challenge.

Democrats pointed to that road ahead in a sharp response to Berger late Friday. “Sowing seeds of distrust in an unprecedented time of uncertainty is not what people need from our leaders,” N.C. Sens. Jay Chaudhuri and Natasha Marcus said. “It is our job as legislators to make it safe for North Carolinians to exercise their right to vote in-person and from their own homes. If we’re going to get the job done, then we need collaboration every step of the way from all party leaders and election law experts.”

Berger, at least, acknowledged Thursday that they need to try. “I’m hopeful we can reach consensus on this issue as we have on others during this crisis,” he wrote. That’s off to a disappointing start.

This story was originally published April 10, 2020 at 10:12 AM with the headline "NC’s top Republican doesn’t trust the governor to run a fair 2020 mail-in election. Really.."