Proposed #ncga House Committee Substitute for SB325 (unrelated to the earlier version) ncleg.net/documentsites/… makes major #ncpol early voting changes. Bill is calendared for House Rules for 10 am. Drops early voting to 10 days from 17. More ..... /1
This amends the statute that was voided by federal court making it harder to compare with what it would have been this year and 2020 without this bill. More ..... /2 #ncpol
Early voting will be 10 days rather than 17 but final Saturday eliminated and starts on a Wednesday. Thus maximum of one Saturday and one Sunday versus three Saturdays and two Sundays under current law. /3 #ncpol
Bill appears to require all sites picked to be open 7 am to 7 pm all 7 weekdays with confusing exception. For this year there is a floor of the same number of total hours as 2010. Language allowing less than 7 am to 7 pm is confusing to me /4 #ncpol
Within whatever plan County adopts, by requiring 7 am to 7 pm appears to prioritize longer hours each day versus number of sites. Requires uniform weekend hours for the one Saturday and one Sunday so if Sunday is 1 to 5 Saturday would be same as I read it /5 #ncpol
Some small side effects: Hyde County has had early voting on remote Ocracoke Island one day each election . This bill appears to require it there seven weekdays or not at all because of reinstated uniformity rule. Perhaps unintended. /6 #ncpol
PCS was released at 11:31 pm last night for 10 am meeting this morning. Huge early voting changes. Short title of bill says “expanded early voting” but that’s if you view more hours per weekend day versus many less days and especially drastic weekend cuts as “expanded” /7 #ncpol
More tweets later /8
Here is the bill again ncleg.net/documentsites/…. Remember the bill internally compares with hours and days in the law that was struck down making harder to see actual impact /9 #ncpol
Bill would be heard in House Rules Committee today at 10 am in 544 LOB. There is audio /10
The bill retains the floor on minimum early voting site hours in even year primaries and elections based on 2010 for 2018, and 2012 for 2020 in each county. You can find the floors here: s3.amazonaws.com/dl.ncsbe.gov/O… Counties can go beyond floor /11 #ncpol
2013 law required all satellite sites to be uniform but didn’t have to be the same as BOE office hours. Bill appears to require all sites open 7 to 7 weekdays. Most major counties had satellite sites open noon to 7 as early morning voting was minimal, more sites w/same $ /12
Weekend provisions in the bill are confusing. Appears to require all 4 weekend days or none. If so, to have Saturday voting county would have to have Sunday. That would be a major limiting factor in many counties. /14
