Partisan State Election Board Leadership Refuses To Provide Public and Its Own Members Vital Data | Eastern NC Now

Press Release:

    Raleigh, NC     North Carolina is among the last states in the union to be called because the Democrat-controlled North Carolina State Board of Elections refuses to provide election day voting history. The state board's official line is that this is due to some counties using a manual process, but the board has refused to issue the data it does have even to its own board members. Republican State Elections Board Member Stacy "Four" Eggers dismisses the Democrat leadership's premise and has sought to have the board release the available election day data and provide more transparency to the public to no avail.

    "I am frustrated by the lack of information I have received on this issue as a Board member," Eggers said. "The State Board of Elections has a record from those counties which use electronic poll books which could be easily uploaded and available. For those counties with paper poll books on election day, those records could be uploaded as soon as they are scanned. It is my understanding Mecklenburg County will have all of its 195 precincts scanned and available for presentation as of today. I am at a complete loss as to why I, as a Board Member, as well as the voters of this State, cannot be provided with this information as it becomes available. While the official Voter History Reconciliation does not happen until December, there is not a reason to deny voters transparency about these records as they are available to the County Boards of Elections and the State Board of Elections."

    The lack of transparency by the board has prevented the media from calling the state for President Trump and Senator Tillis.

    President Trump leads by over 75 thousand votes, and Senator Tillis's advantage is over 95 thousand votes. According to the Board, there are 94,900 outstanding absentee ballots. But an unknown number (at least to the public) of these voters voted on election day thereby canceling out their absentee ballot. Given the November 3 postmark requirement, it is unlikely that many additional legal ballots will arrive. Still, the state board has not published a number of absentee ballots that have arrived but not yet been counted.

    In accordance with statutory requirement, the state board released the number of provisional ballots cast in North Carolina, indicating that there are 40,766 provisional ballots that have to be researched. However, they've not released the full lists of those who cast provisional ballots. The provisional file that has been provided is not only missing thousands of records, but it also fluctuates up and down with each posting making it difficult to determine who really cast a provisional ballot. With only three days before most of the county boards conduct their canvass for provisional ballots, the State Board has only released 31 thousand out of the almost 41 thousand provisional ballots. This lack of transparency and ever-changing data undermines the confidence people have in the election process.

    "It is abundantly clear that President Trump and Senator Thom Tillis carried North Carolina decisively in the 2020 election and the only reason these races have not been called is the complete lack of transparency from the Democrat-controlled board of elections," said NCGOP Chairman Michael Whatley. "The Board needs to stop playing games with the data and let everyone know the results."

    Below is a list of the requests for additional information the NCGOP has made of the Board and still not received:

• How and when will the list and number of received, but not counted, absentee ballots be posted?
• Election day vote history. Not a single voter or county's information has been released. The vast majority of counties have electronic voter books to track voter history. Is the Board holding the vote history until they receive the information from every county before updating the number of outstanding absentee ballots, or will that be updated as the Board gets the information?
• When will you provide the full list of provisional voters? Why are the numbers on the posted lists increasing and falling?
• The full schedule of county absentee and provisional ballot meetings. This information was promised to the media at the state board's Wednesday press conference. The current list posted on the NCSBE website is largely composed of "TBD" for time and location of the county meetings.

• Contact: Tim Wigginton
•     communications@ncgop.org