The Republican majority on the state Board of Elections voted against including Sunday hours as part of early voting plans in most counties where local boards could not agree on weekend schedules.
Republicans on county boards who presented their early voting plans to the state board on Thursday said it’s not worth opening polling sites on Sundays because too few people vote that day, and that Sunday should be reserved for church and family.
“By having Sunday voting, we are requiring people to work on the Lord’s day,” said Matthew Longworth, a Republican member of the Anson County elections board. “I do believe that the downfall of this country will be contingent on what we do with God.”
Elections board members on the state and county boards who wanted Sunday hours said they provided access to people who work long or irregular hours, have long commutes, or have care-taking responsibilities. They said some religions observe Saturday as a day of rest.
Most of the 20 early voting plans the state board considered were adopted along party lines with Republicans in the majority. The other 80 counties in the state had unanimous agreement on their plans and so did not come before the board.
The contentious daylong meeting was held against the backdrop of state Auditor Dave Boliek and his staff having worked to influence local county decisions on voting locations and hours, as NC Newsline has reported.
Boliek hired Dallas Woodhouse, a GOP operative and former executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party, to work with local boards as an elections liaison. In that role, Woodhouse urged county elections chairs to drop Sunday hours and establish early voting sites in certain towns.
Though Board of Elections Chair Francis De Luca said he never wanted to hear Woodhouse’s name again, the Woodhouse name was tattooed across the board’s proceedings.
“Even though Mr. Woodhouse resigned last month, his fingerprints are all over these plans,” said Siobhan Millen, a Democrat on the state elections board. “They want to tailor who votes by tweaking the sites and the hours.”
The state Board of Elections approves counties’ early voting plans if the five-member local boards do not unanimously agree on dates, locations, or hours. The state board can adopt any of the local plans, or come up with its own. The early voting period stretches from Oct. 15 through Oct. 31. Early voting locations must be open on weekdays and on the final Saturday, under state law. Otherwise, weekends are optional.
Most of the local disagreements involved Sunday hours because Democrats wanted to provide them and Republicans didn’t.
Woodhouse’s influence
The state board approved 20 early voting plans Thursday. Most of those votes were along party lines, with Republicans often voting for plans that Republicans on the county election boards wanted.
Board member Jeff Carmon, a Democrat, asked county board chairs what interactions they had with Woodhouse. Some said they had a few quick discussions.
Jay DeLancy, a member of the Lee County board, volunteered that Woodhouse called to ask his opinion on Sunday voting.
“I thought the issue was moot,” Delancy. “In Lee County, we had three hours of Sunday voting. That’s the way it was. I didn’t think we could get rid of it.”
Woodhouse discussed the U.S. Supreme Court’s Louisiana vs. Callais decision and how it affected the issue, DeLancy said. The Callais decision significantly weakened the federal Voting Rights Act.
“He suggested that we add two hours on Saturdays and get rid of Sundays,” DeLancy said.
The Lee County majority plan has no Sunday voting hours. The state board adopted a minority plan for the county that included three hours of voting on Sunday, Oct. 18. It was one of a handful of votes that was unanimous.
Most of the county elections board chairs whom Woodhouse is known to have contacted about early voting plans did not show up at the state board meeting to explain or defend them.
That was the case for Jackson County, home to Western Carolina University.
The Jackson elections board landed in the spotlight this year when its Republican members revealed they were subject to “pressure from Raleigh” not to approve an early voting site on the university’s campus.
One Republican member on the Jackson board, Jay Pavey voted with Democrats for the campus site, saying it was the best choice. Pavey said he was threatened with removal from the board if he approved the campus site.
Pavey and the Democrats who voted for the campus site came to Thursday’s state board meeting. The Jackson elections board Chair Bill Thompson, who cast the only vote against the campus site, did not attend.
Pavey told Republicans on the state board that if they backed a plan “obtained through pressure and obtained through coercion, you’re going to hurt our party.”
Public records revealed that Boliek’s office worked to delay a vote on Jackson’s early voting plan and instructed Thompson to “stand strong” and vote for a plan without the campus site.
The state board voted unanimously to include the campus site and the Cullowhee Recreation Center, the location that Thompson wanted, as two of four Jackson County early voting sites.
A compromise in Granville
The state board adopted a compromise plan in Granville County where the local board had not been able to agree on locations.
Again, Republican members of the Granville Board did not attend the meeting to defend their plan to close one of the county’s most-used sites and move another heavily-used site away from downtown Oxford, while opening a new early voting location in northern Granville. The Republican plan and the Democrats plan agreed on an early voting site at the Tar River Elementary School in Franklinton.
The sites Republicans wanted to move or close were those Black voters used most.
Democrats want to keep those sites and the Franklinton elementary school, and open the new site in northern Granville. At a contentious meeting last month, Republican members rejected Democrats’ proposals for four sites, even though the Board of County Commissioners approved the expense.
After defeating a proposal in a 3-2 vote to adopt the sites Granville Democrats wanted, the state board voted 4-1 to keep the South Branch Library site rather than close it, keep the elementary school and the northern Granville site, but to move a fourth site from central Oxford to the Granville County Convention & Expo Center, which is outside downtown.
Republican state board member Stacy “Four” Eggers IV, presented the four-site plan as a compromise, but Carmon didn’t think it was a good one.
“If they’ve said that [central Oxford] area is heavily populated with Black and brown individuals, how can we say it does not disproportionately impact them?” Carmon asked.
A controversial 2024 law stripped power to appoint the State Board of Elections from governor-elect Josh Stein, a Democrat, and gave it to Boliek, a Republican. It also allowed the board to flip from a Democratic to a Republican majority. Before 2025, the majority of election board members belonged to the governor’s party. Boliek appoints the chairs of the majority-Republican local elections boards. Stein and then Gov. Roy Cooper sued over the law. After conflicting lower court rulings, the state Supreme Court allowed the law to take effect while Stein appeals.
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