RALEIGH, N.C. - House lawmakers advanced three anti-voter bills today, sending one of them to Governor Cooper’s desk and the other two to the Senate. SB 326 would build harsh barriers for Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, older adults in residential living facilities, and voters with disabilities by discarding ballots that are cast but do not arrive by mail on or before Election Day. SB 326 now awaits action from the Governor. SB 725, which would prohibit local election officials from receiving grants to help our elections run smoothly, now returns to the Senate for concurrence.
HB 259 now heads to the Senate and could improperly remove registered voters from the voter rolls and jeopardize the safety and privacy of immigrant community members. This bill includes identical language to last session's SB 250, which the Governor vetoed.
Ann Webb, senior policy counsel for the ACLU of North Carolina, released the following statement after the House Rules Committee’s passage of the three bills:
“It is shameful that lawmakers are advancing anti-voter bills in the final days of the legislative session. These undemocratic efforts are part of a national playbook to slowly erode North Carolinians’ access to the ballot piece by piece.
“Not only would these bills create more barriers to the ballot box for voters, especially voters of color, but one in particular, HB 259, would put community members at risk of being targets of harassment and violence.
“In advancing these anti-voter bills, state lawmakers are extending our state’s shameful legacy of voter suppression. These policies deserve nothing more than to be cast into the dustbin of history alongside segregation, Jim Crow, and other markers of our state’s racist history of denying people of their right to vote.”
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