ATLANTA (AP) – Lawmakers in several Republican-led states have sought to exert more authority over state and local election offices, arguing that new powers that Democrats warn could be used to target left-leaning counties in future elections
The moves range from demanding legislative approval of court settlements in election-related lawsuits to creating avenues to take over local electoral offices.
In North Carolina, a Republican proposal being pushed through the General Assembly would change the makeup of state and county election boards and give lawmakers sole authority to appoint board members.
Texas Republican lawmakers recently passed legislation that not only removes the top election official in the Democratic stronghold of Harris County, which includes Houston, but also allows the state’s chief elections officer, Secretary of State , takes over the county electoral office. The secretary is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate, both now in Republican hands.
Election observers say it is imperative to public trust that elections remain free of partisan manipulation and say they are concerned that lawmakers will decide to use their new powers for political gain.
“There are ways that states can step in and help local election officials,” said David Levine, a former local election official in Idaho who is now a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund Alliance for Securing Democracy. “Instead, we’re seeing states enact laws that could introduce new challenges to the conduct of American elections.”
Attempts by Republican legislatures to expand their power over how elections are conducted have soared since the 2020 presidential election, spurred by former President Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud. Republican lawmakers characterize the measures as necessary oversight aimed at improving elections, while Democrats criticize them as a power grab that could be used to interfere with voting or ballot counting.
Offices that oversee elections at the state or local level are primarily filled by people who win partisan elections or are appointed in a process involving partisan officials. But those who work have typically worked to maintain a nonpartisan approach to calling elections. Since the 2020 presidential election, some of these positions have been taken by people who rejected the results, raising doubts about how they will run their office.
Some of the laws passed during that time by Republican lawmakers have raised additional concerns about partisan interference. Lawmakers in 13 mostly GOP-controlled states have passed roughly 15 bills that expanded lawmakers’ authority over elections or took some action to interfere with local election administrators, according to data collected by the Voting Rights Lab, which tracking voting-related legislation in states and advocating for expanded voter access.
In Texas, laws passed by Republican lawmakers and signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott will abolish the election administrator’s office in heavily Democratic Harris County, which includes Houston and has more than 2 million voters. The laws also provide a way for the state to take over oversight of the county elections office in the future.
The Texas GOP’s rush to shake up elections in the nation’s third-largest county, and one with large numbers of Hispanic and black voters, followed limited problems in the November election that included a shortage of ballots and some polling places that they open late Previous stumbles have also put Harris County elections under Republican scrutiny, including 10,000 mail-in ballots that were not counted on the day of the 2022 primary.
“This is about performance, not about politics,” said state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston.
Harris County leaders have accused Republicans of using the problems as an excuse to take greater control of elections in a place that is increasingly leaning toward Democrats. A lawsuit is expected.
The county was virtually split in the 2012 presidential race. In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden easily won Harris County by double digits.
“This has been a big saga of the state deciding they don’t like the way the residents of Harris County vote, so they’re going to take control of the election machinery in Harris County,” he said. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, a Democrat. and the county’s highest elected office.
In North Carolina, where Republicans control the legislature, lawmakers are making another attempt to wrest power from the governor, a Democrat, to decide who sits on election boards. The measures come after Republicans were thwarted in previous years by the courts and by voters, who opposed a 2018 constitutional amendment.
Republicans, who now hold veto-proof majorities, envision an eight-person State Board of Elections that would likely be made up of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans, appointed by the legislative leaders of both political parties. It would replace the current five-person model, with appointments by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper based on slates provided by both parties. According to current state legislation, no more than three board members can be from the same political party.
Republicans have pointed to a legal settlement reached over mail-in voting deadlines during the COVID-19 pandemic between the Democratic-controlled board and a union-affiliated group as evidence of partisan gerrymandering.
“These actions were enabled by a board that circumvented the legislative process and caused North Carolinians to lose confidence in the election process,” said Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger, a Republican. “We will now take the necessary steps to begin rebuilding that trust.”
The election bill, which passed the Senate last week, would also reduce the size of county election boards from five members to four. Legislative leaders of both parties would appoint the members, rather than the current model in which the governor has one appointment and the State Board of Elections fills the rest of the seats. Democrats see change as a recipe for stagnation.
“This will lead to uncertified election results, uncertainty and endless litigation,” said Minority Leader Dan Blue, D-D.
Fears of a takeover did not materialize in Georgia after the GOP-controlled Legislature passed a bill in 2021 that gave the State Board of Elections the power to intervene in county election offices and remove officials local elections After its review clause was triggered by Republican lawmakers, the board launched an examination of Fulton County, which includes much of Atlanta and has had a history of election problems.
After the review found the heavily Democratic county had shown considerable improvement, the board recently decided not to take over its elections office. Matt Mashburn, a Republican appointed to the board, said the “talking heads were wrong” when they suggested the law would be used to interfere in local elections.
“I think the process has been very good and thorough, and everyone took their time,” he said.
In Wisconsin, state election commissioners plan to meet next week to consider whether Meagan Wolfe, the state’s nonpartisan elections administrator, should serve another term. It is one of the relatively few examples of nonpartisan election administration in the United States.
Commissioners are weighing the chances that Wolfe will survive confirmation in the Republican-led Senate, where some lawmakers have vowed not to support him despite numerous state reviews that say there was no evidence of widespread fraud or tampering with state elections in 2020. The state has made various efforts in recent years to weaken the bipartisan election commission, which has an equal number of Democrats and Republicans.
Kathy Bernier, a former Republican state senator and county election official who has spoken out against false claims of widespread fraud, said commissioners face a tough vote.
“The difficulty with both Republicans and Democrats right now is that they don’t trust anyone as nonpartisan,” he said. “So whoever they choose, one side or the other will probably have a complaint or two.”
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Associated Press writers Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina; Paul Weber in Austin, Texas; and Harm Venhuizen in Madison, Wis., contributed to this report.
