NC Appeals to U.S. Supreme Court to Block Mid-Election Rule Changes

NC Board of Elections, controlled by Dems, rewrote state election laws after voting started

Victory in Court of Appeals thwarted by shocking move from one judge to alter outcome before final decision could be published

U.S. Supreme Court last hope for blocking unelected partisan panel from changing election laws after voting started

Raleigh, N.C. — North Carolina Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) and House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Cleveland) today appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to block the Democratic Party-controlled N.C. State Board of Elections’ attempt to change election laws after voting already commenced.

Here is a fact sheet with key dates and events leading up to this point.

Here is the motion filed with the U.S. Supreme Court this morning.

Sen. Berger said, “The question now before the U.S. Supreme Court is whether an unelected state panel should be able to change election laws after voting has already started. Multiple judges in multiple jurisdictions have already said no, and this case was thrown into further chaos by the shocking behavior of one appeals judge who thwarted the Fourth Circuit’s favorable ruling before they could publish the opinion.”

The explosive dissent from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals revealed that legislative leaders won the case, but, “finding that he had been outvoted, the dissenting judge immediately initiated an [alternate procedure] before the panel could even circulate its views to the entire court, let alone to the public.”

The dissenting Fourth Circuit judges rightly diagnosed what’s happening nationwide: “It takes no special genius to know what this insidious formula is producing. Our country is now plagued by a proliferation of pre-election litigation that creates confusion and turmoil and that threatens to undermine public confidence in the federal courts, state agencies, and the elections themselves.”

In this case, the Democratic Party-controlled Board of Elections, together with Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein, secretly negotiated with Democratic Party lawyer Marc Elias to “settle” a lawsuit and rewrite state election laws after voting began. The changes to law they “settled” were already rejected by federal and state judges after bipartisan supermajorities in the legislature established the rules of this year’s election months before voting began.

Two federal judges have already issued blistering rebukes of the Board of Elections’ actions, accusing the Board and the Attorney General’s office of “ignor[ing] the rule of law” and perpetrating “a flagrant misuse” of the court’s authority.