'Election law Barney Fifes': NC news editor mocks Republicans’ 'election integrity' bills

On Thursday, August 24th, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper (D) announced that he would veto two pieces of legislation crafted by State Senate Republicans that, respectively, "make it harder for people, especially young people, college students away from home and people of color to vote and for their votes to count" and "would give legislative Republicans more power to influence how elections are run."

Senate Bill 747 "has nothing to do with election security and everything to do with Republicans keeping and gaining power,” said Cooper. "It requires valid votes to be tossed out unnecessarily, schemes to restrict early voting and absentee ballots, encourages voter intimidation and attempts to give Republican legislators the authority to decide contested election results."

Senate Bill 749, Cooper explained, "would change the structure of the State and County Boards of Elections in a backdoor maneuver to limit early voting and satisfy the Republican legislature's quest for more power to decide contested elections. The scheme would establish an even split of Democrats and Republicans on these boards, creating potential gridlock and leading to the supermajority Republican legislature and partisan courts deciding contested elections."

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Both proposals have drawn intense criticism from civil rights groups and local media outlets.

The Hill's Nick Robertson notes that "Republicans have a veto-proof majority in the state legislature and are expected to overturn Cooper's veto of the bill," adding that civil rights groups have condemned the GOP's attempt to seize control of elections as "reminiscent of Reconstruction-era tactics by the Ku Klux Klan."

NC Newsline Editor Rob Schofield also blasted the narrative that has accompanied SBs 747 and 749, writing, "As has been detailed in numerous places in recent weeks, Senate Bill 747 is a proposal that will unnecessarily make voting harder for a goodly share of the population and further burden already stressed and burdened election officials — all while granting license to a small army of election law Barney Fifes to wander in annoying and intimidating fashion through polling places."

Schofield continues, "At least some confused right-wing warriors really believe their own paranoid propaganda – namely that do-gooder 'libs' and Democrats are somehow the authors of an ongoing nefarious plot to steal elections from champions of selfless virtue and the American Way, like Donald Trump."

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Schofield adds, "It would be one thing if there was any credible evidence of widespread improper behavior (outside the twisted mind of a certain deeply disturbed and delusional former president) that such changes might somehow address. But as has been repeatedly shown across the nation – including in North Carolina where election officials have presided over and certified multiple GOP electoral victories in recent years – such evidence is as scarce as a prominent Republican politician with the guts to call out Trump's lies."

Schofield concludes that although the governor's veto will be shortlived, "that doesn't make Cooper's action in condemning and vetoing the election bill futile or a waste of time. By calling out such an unnecessary, damaging, and cynical attack on voting rights, the governor did his constitutional duty and made an important record."

Schofield's editorial is available at this link. Robertson's report is here.