State elections board takes up candidate name ruling, early voting disputes
RALEIGH — The North Carolina State Board of Elections took up a crowded election-administration agenda last week that included disputed early voting plans, a candidate-name declaratory ruling and complaints involving county election board members.
The board met Aug. 20 at its Raleigh office. According to the State Board’s meeting notice, members were scheduled to consider early voting plans for the November general election that had not been unanimously adopted by county boards of elections.
The first group of counties involved disputes over dates or times. The agenda listed Union, Rowan, Anson, Craven, Rockingham, Greene, Wayne, Harnett, Lee, Nash, Chatham and Scotland counties. A second group involved counties with disputes over locations, or over both locations and dates or times. That list included Jackson, Pasquotank, Guilford, Pitt, Lenoir, Cumberland, Granville and Columbus counties.
The meeting also included a declaratory ruling request on how a candidate’s name may appear on the ballot. Carolina Journal reported that the board unanimously rejected a Rutherford County candidate’s request to appear on the ballot using a religious mononym rather than a legal surname and directed staff toward possible rulemaking on candidate names and filing corrections.
The State Board’s agenda cited the declaratory ruling statute and a state administrative rule governing such requests. The issue is significant because ballot names, notices of candidacy and filing corrections affect how election officials administer candidate filings across all 100 counties.
The agenda also included campaign finance penalty waiver requests, county board member vacancy appointments and initial consideration of complaints involving county election board members in Anson and Cumberland counties.
The meeting came as county and state election officials prepare for the Nov. 3 general election. The State Board’s calendar lists the in-person early voting period as Oct. 15 through Oct. 31, with absentee voting beginning Sept. 4.
Editor’s note:
This article was drafted with the assistance of artificial intelligence and was reviewed and fact-checked by a member of the NC Political News editorial team before publication.
