Sweeping election law changes moving forward again in NC legislature, ahead of 2024 elections

State House lawmakers are expected to vote Wednesday on some big changes to election law. They include moving the deadline for mail in ballots from three days after election day to election day evening. Republican lawmakers have said two bills they're hoping to pass are needed for election integrity, and to help improve voters’ faith in elections. Democratic opponents say the proposals are really intended to suppress voter turnout by making it harder for people to vote, and by making it more likely for state officials to have to throw out legitimate ballots — especially those cast by mail. One of the bills, which was up for debate Tuesday in the House elections law committee, would make a number of changes to voting rules. Included are changes to the rules for mail-in voting, as well as the rules governing the poll observers political parties can send to voting precincts during elections. Top Democratic leaders blasted the bill as a whole, calling it voter suppression. But Democratic lawmakers in the committee praised some of the incremental changes, acknowledging that Republicans made them to respond to their concerns. Because of that, some GOP activists were unhappy with the changes. John Kane, who recently attempted to oust the state Republican Party's leadership at this summer's annual convention, derided the new version of the bill as "something you’d see out of a bipartisan, evenly split legislature. Not a Republican supermajority.” Republican lawmakers, however, defended the bill as balancing election integrity concerns with the concerns of local elections administrators across the state — who had predicted the original version of the bill would lead to increased chaos and voter intimidation. So even though Democrats didn't get much of what they wanted in the bill, one top progressive leader thanked GOP leadership for the concessions they did make. "I really do appreciate many of these changes," said Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford), who often takes the lead role for Democrats on election-related issues. Conservatives also weren't entirely upset with the new version of the bill. Although it's now less strict in several ways than the version that passed the Senate earlier this summer, it still would make major changes to many existing election laws. "This is a good bill," said Jim Womack, a Republican insider who leads the North Carolina chapter of the Elections Integrity Network, which had pushed GOP lawmakers to act on many of the changes now under consideration. He added: "There's a lot more that can be done to make it even better." The bill in question, SB 747, was filed earlier this summer after top GOP election law officials privately met with Womack and Cleta Mitchell, an attorney for former President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign and his efforts to overturn the election results. Mitchell was involved in the phone call with Georgia officials where Trump asked them to “find” extra votes for him — the call which on Monday resulted in a slew of criminal charges against Trump and a number of his lawyers, campaign aides and others. Mitchell herself, however, was not charged. Most of the changes to issues like voter ID and mail-in voting that Mitchell’s group, the Election Integrity Network, was publicly lobbying for are included in the bill. But Republican leaders previously told WRAL they didn’t use Mitchell’s input when writing the bill. Another bill that also could pass but that wasn't up for debate Tuesday, SB 749, would take away Democrats’ control of the N.C. State Board of Elections, as well as county elections boards, ahead of the 2024 elections. It would make the state and local elections boards evenly divided between the two parties, instead of giving a 3-2 majority on the board to whichever party controls the governor’s office. Similar proposals have been ruled unconstitutional multiple times in the past, and one was also shot down by voters at the ballot box in 2018. However, Republican lawmakers said earlier this year they hope the North Carolina Supreme Court will disregard those prior rulings and let this change become law now that Republicans have taken control of the court. Subscribe to WRAL:    / wral5   Follow WRAL: Facebook:   / wraltv   Twitter:   / wral   IG:   / wral   About WRAL-TV: WRAL is your Raleigh, North Carolina news source. Check out our videos for the latest news in Raleigh, local sports, Raleigh weather, and more at https://WRAL.com #localnews #northcarolina #politics