N.C. Supreme Court Wants Information about Stymied Election Boards | Eastern NC Now

    Publisher's note: This post was created by the staff for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

    The N.C. Supreme Court has ordered information Monday about county election boards that are blocked from carrying out their duties as the local election season heats up.

    A court order issued today in the Cooper v. Berger case seeks information by 2 p.m. Monday about the stymied local election boards.

    State law blocks the three-member boards from taking action unless all board members are present. But about 14 of the 100 county boards have a vacancy.

    Those seats remain vacant as Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and the Republican-led General Assembly battle over the fate of a law merging state elections and ethics boards into a new bipartisan eight-member group. Cooper has refused to appoint members to that new state oversight board as he challenges its constitutionality in court.

    The new order signed by Supreme Court Associate Justice Sam "Jimmy" Ervin IV asks for the following information:

1. the identity of each county board of elections which currently lacks a quorum;
2. the extent, if any, to which any affected county board of elections would be unable to act even if the consent order which has been proposed by the parties is entered;
3. the nature and extent of any pending, unresolved complaints which affect the manner in which any election to be held on or before 12 September 2017 in any of those counties is to be conducted;
4. the date or dates upon which the ballots associated with any election affected by those complaints have to be made available for absentee or early voting purposes;
5. the date or dates upon which absentee or early voting must begin in any election affected by those complaints;
6. and any other relevant information that the State believes would be helpful to the Court.

    Parties in Cooper v. Berger filed a petition Aug. 8. The petition asked the Supreme Court to allow a local elections board to hold meetings with just two members if the board had a vacancy. The two remaining members could take action only if they agreed on any given vote.

    The petition suggested "approximately" 14 county elections boards would be affected.

    The N.C. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear argument Aug. 28 in Cooper v. Berger.