On Aug. 24, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) vetoed S747, a bill making a number of changes to the state’s election laws.
The bill includes provisions expanding the role of election observers, including allowing the chair of each political party in a county to appoint two registered voters of that county as election observers at each polling location and up to 10 registered voters as observers at any polling location in the county. It also removes a grace period for mail-in ballots, instead requiring ballots to be received before polls close on Election Day.
In his veto message, Cooper said Republicans “know that younger and non-white voters tend to vote more by absentee ballot or by early voting, so they shortened the time your absentee votes can arrive and still count, and they made it easier to throw them out.” Cooper also said the bill would intimidate voters by “stacking the polling place with Republican poll observers who will be watching you vote and can hear your conversations with election officials.”
