When 9th congressional candidate Mark Harris took the stand Thursday and called for a new election in light of evidence his political operative orchestrated a fraudulent absentee ballot scheme, a collective gasp resonated through the room.
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WASHINGTON -- Sen. Richard Burr is in the awkward position of investigating whether his ally in the White House colluded with Russia to meddle in a U.S. election. As the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the North Carolina Republican is overseeing an effort to assess Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election that elevated President Donald Trump to the White House.
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If there’s a single most maddening and telling hallmark of the hard Right leadership that’s dominated the North Carolina General Assembly over the past eight years, it has to be its failure to live up to its members’ past promises to champion open and transparent government. It’s difficult to remember now, but when Republicans took the reins of power back in 2011, they rode in on a platform that promised a new era of openness in government.
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As you may have heard by now, there was a rather maddening side story to the veto override votes that took place during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day at the North Carolina General Assembly. As commentator Thomas Mills rightfully pointed out last week on the website Politics NC, had all Democratic members of the House showed up, it’s quite possible that Governor Cooper’s vetoes of two badly flawed bills (or at least one of them, anyway) could have been sustained.
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Jane Pinsky, Director of the NC Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform discusses election irregularities in NC’s 9th congressional district, the flawed ethics investigation process and the need for nonpartisan redistricting reform.
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It was clear during two hours of debate Wednesday where the two political parties at the legislature diverged over photo ID: their belief in voter fraud. The GOP supermajority expectedly passed legislation that would implement a constitutional requirement that voters must show a photo ID to cast a ballot.
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For the better part of two years, allegations of myriad campaign finance violations have hung over state Sen. Ralph Hise, an influential western North Carolina Republican. But Tuesday morning, members of a key state elections and ethics panel unanimously agreed to a settlement that, as far as state election officials goes, closes the book with a relatively modest punishment.
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Breaking the Republicans’ veto-proof majority was the Democrats’ and voting rights activists’ short game. Their long game? Ending partisan gerrymandering for good in North Carolina. Common Cause, the North Carolina Democratic Party and a group of individual voters filed a lawsuit earlier this week in Wake County Superior Court challenging the...
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The North Carolina courts have a lot to celebrate after Tuesday night – voter turnout in statewide judicial races was higher than the past three midterm elections, voters elected the first openly LGBTQ candidate in any statewide political race and there was a rebuke on lawmakers’ efforts to politicize the judicial branch.
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While Congressional and General Assembly races got most of the election headlines this week, history was quietly being made in a series of law enforcement races. On Tuesday the state's seven largest counties - Buncombe, Cumberland, Durham, Forsyth, Guilford, Mecklenburg and Wake - all elected Black men sheriff.
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