Lawsuit seeks more influence for unaffiliated voters, who outnumber Democrats and the GOP

Unaffiliated voters are the biggest political group in North Carolina, outnumbering both registered Democrats and registered Republicans.

They passed that threshold earlier this year. The News & Observer reported at the time that political scientists, as well as unaffiliated voters themselves, all tend to agree it’s because people are increasingly dissatisfied with the two major parties.

Now, a lawsuit on behalf of unaffiliated voters is seeking more influence for them, by forcing the state to let unaffiliated North Carolinians sit on the N.C. State Board of Elections. That board sets the rules for elections, hears complaints about local election officials and is in charge of investigating allegations of voter fraud, campaign finance misdeeds or other electoral skullduggery.

“The state law barring plaintiffs and all other unaffiliated voters from serving on the State Board serves no public or valid purpose but instead is a means to entrench the Democratic and Republican political parties in power and give them exclusive control over the supervision, management, and administration of the elections system,” says the lawsuit from the group Common Cause NC, which is mostly known for fighting to end gerrymandering.

For nearly all of North Carolina history, the elections board has been set up similarly to the current five-member board. Three seats go to whichever political party the current governor represents, and the other two seats go to the largest other political party. For all of modern history that has meant Republicans and Democrats.

But since unaffiliated voters now outnumber both Republicans and Democrats, the lawsuit says, that law means millions of potential candidates for the elections board are banned from being considered.

And the current system is likely to become more unfair as time marches on, the lawsuit states. While 35% of all North Carolina voters are unaffiliated, it’s far more prevalent among voters in their teens, 20s and 30s — including nearly half of the state’s youngest voters, those under 25.

One of the voters suing is 26-year-old Tyler Daye, who has been highly active in elections in his home of Guilford County, including running a local precinct on election day. But because he’s an unaffiliated voter, he’s banned from serving on the state elections board unless he joins one of the two main parties.

The lawsuit indicates that’s unlikely to happen: “In (Daye’s) view, political parties are the principal cause of the extreme polarization and tension in today’s world.”

Politics in election administration?

The lawsuit comes at the same time that the elections board has been reeling from accusations of political machinations regarding certification of the Green Party, although Common Cause NC’s lawsuit does not mention that issue.

The ultra-liberal Green Party is likely to siphon votes away from Democratic candidates whom those voters would otherwise have supported, and the elections board initially voted 3-2 in favor of denying the Green Party’s certification. All three Democrats on the board voted to deny, while both Republicans said the Green Party should be on the ballot.

The question was over the petition the Green Party had to submit, with at least 13,865 signatures. The state board found that many submitted signatures were fake. However, the board reversed its decision with a new vote Monday, deciding to allow the Green Party onto the ballot after all. The NCSBE said that even though there were fake signatures, enough were real for the Green Party to qualify.

The lawsuit says that control over elections rules and administration makes it even more important that politically neutral voters aren’t kept off the elections board anymore, due to rising distrust in elections. It’s irrational that the state bans “voters who are not aligned with a political party and are thus more likely to fairly and impartially participate,” the lawsuit claims.

“This law is destructive of our democracy because it undermines citizens’ confidence in the elections system,” the lawsuit says. “Limiting service on the State Board to members of the Democratic and Republican parties encourages citizens to believe that election officials are chosen to look out for their parties’ interests rather than see that elections are conducted fairly for all.”

Republican legislative leaders, who set the rules for the elections board and are the named defendants in the case, had not yet responded to the lawsuit, which was announced late Tuesday afternoon.

Republicans have tried several times since Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper was elected in 2016 to change the elections board to take power away from the Democratic Party, including a version that reserved one seat on the board for an Unaffiliated voter. However, all of their attempts have either been ruled unconstitutional or shot down by voters.