Gutting NC’s election budget doesn’t improve election security, it worsens it | Opinion
North Carolina’s State Board of Elections is responsible for overseeing all elections within the state. Its staff provides vital support, guidance and training for local election officials.
That staff also investigates election law violations, maintains essential voting systems and databases, and ensures campaign finance compliance. The level of funding the State Board of Elections (SBOE) receives in the state budget not only has a significant impact on our individual voting experiences, but the security of our elections as well.
That’s why it’s extremely alarming to learn that N.C. lawmakers recently passed a Senate budget with no funding for an upgrade in the 25-year-old state elections information management system known as SEIMS.
This technology infrastructure secures and implements elections in every county and at the state level. It’s antiquated, inefficient and vulnerable to defects.
The House passed a budget with only a fraction of what the SBOE requested for SEIMS. Dueling budgets mean the next stop is a conference committee, which is behind closed doors.
And by throwing the new photo voter ID provision into the mix, two things are clear: North Carolina lawmakers are trying to make it harder for us to exercise our freedom to vote, and our democracy is being threatened by people seeking to undermine the security of our elections.
The SBOE relies on crucial funding to ensure our elections run smoothly, to educate the public, and prepare county boards and poll workers at nearly 2,700 voting sites across the state for North Carolina’s new photo ID implementation. North Carolinians are going to be forced to produce photo ID to vote come this fall, not to mention navigate other potential changes to voting laws. Therefore, our state should increase funding, not cut it.
According to the NC Budget & Tax Center, the State Board of Elections’ budget for election administration has decreased by 19% in the last 15 years, yet the number of registered voters in our state has increased by 33%.
Why are we spending less funding at a time where voters are turning out in historic numbers?
These funding cuts have an impact at the county level. Because of insufficient funding, the SBOE has been forced to reduce its number of security and support technicians, who act as intermediaries between SBOE and county boards of election. They answer questions from the counties and help out as needed. In recent years, they have been overwhelmed by requests because there aren’t enough of them to cover the state’s 100 counties. They are particularly important in small counties, where the elections director is often the only full-time staff member. Ultimately, a smaller SBOE staff reduces their capacity to provide critical support to run free and fair elections.
To make matters worse, legislators — who claim to be concerned about election integrity — want to use this year’s elections budget process to withdraw North Carolina from the Electronic Registration Information Center known as ERIC, an important national tool whose sole purpose is to ensure our state has clean, accurate voter rolls. Anyone who says otherwise is looking for a reason to undermine our election results.
Gutting our state’s election budget doesn’t improve election security, it worsens it.
Our democracy depends on an election system that is fair and accessible to all voters. Instead of rolling back voter freedoms, restricting access to the ballot box, and underfunding our elections, legislators should focus on protecting our freedom to vote and passing laws that expand our democracy, not shrink it.
It’s critical that the SBOE has the funds necessary to educate voters and ensure our elections are safe and secure, and we can still urge our legislature to make funding our elections a priority in the final budget.
Bottom line: North Carolinians deserve an elections budget that invests in its people and programs that ensure our elections are free, fair, and accessible to all.
Courtney Patterson is chairman of the Lenoir County Board of Elections and First Vice President of the North Carolina NAACP.
