A bipartisan panel of judges in North Carolina has ruled that the Republican-controlled state legislature improperly tried to seize control of state and local election boards from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper – a consequential decision in a state that could emerge as a key battleground in November’s presidential election.
The decision blocks a portion of a controversial voting law that changed the makeup of these boards and leaves in place, for the time being, the current configuration, which favors the party of the sitting governor. The state Board of Elections, for instance, currently has three Democrats and two Republicans. The ruling also affects 100 county boards that oversee elections in the Tar Heel State.
Republican leaders in the North Carolina General Assembly did not immediately indicate whether they intend to appeal the decision. It could end up before North Carolina’s elected Supreme Court, which flipped to Republican control last year and has ruled in favor of the GOP in other high-profile cases.
In this ruling, the three-judge panel – made up of two Republicans and one Democrat – unanimously sided with Cooper that the election measure passed by state Republican lawmakers last year “infringes upon the governor’s Constitutional duties” because the election boards carry out “executive functions.”
And the lawmakers’ actions, the judges said, marked “the most stark and blatant removal of appointment power from the Governor” since state Supreme Court decisions earlier in Cooper’s tenure that rebuffed GOP legislative efforts to curb his powers.
Previous efforts by Republicans in the General Assembly to change the makeup of election boards have been rejected by the courts, and by voters in a 2018 referendum.
In a statement posted on social…
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