NC high court denies governor's request, allows GOP takeover of state elections board

Joe Marusak, The Charlotte Observer on May 24, 2025

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In a divided vote, the Republican-majority North Carolina Supreme Court late Friday denied Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s request to block new appointments to the State Board of Elections while Stein’s lawsuit challenging the legality of the appointments proceeds.

The ruling means that appointments to the board by State Auditor Dave Boliek, a Republican, are allowed to stand pending the lawsuit, which will likely take months to resolve.

The Associated Press first reported the high court’s ruling.

Stein’s lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of a law enacted by the GOP-dominated General Assembly last year that shifted authority for appointments to the elections board from Stein to Boliek.

On April 30, the North Carolina Court of Appeals allowed the law to take effect, reversing the order of a lower court that ruled the law unconstitutional, The News & Observer reported at the time.

On May 1, Boliek made appointments to the Elections Board that shifted the board from a 3-2 Democratic majority to a 3-2 GOP control.

In its ruling Friday, the majority on the N.C. Supreme Court wrote that “the Court of Appeals’ ruling was not manifestly unsupported by reason or so arbitrary that it could not have been the result of a reasoned decision.”

In her dissenting opinion, Associate Justice Allison Riggs, a Democrat, wrote that the Supreme Court majority “is rewriting precedent and creating an explanation for an unexplained Court of Appeals order in an effort to upend 125-years status quo for the North Carolina State Board of Elections while this case winds its way through the courts.”

Friday’s ruling also lets Boliek proceed with choosing chairpersons of the 100 county election boards beginning in late June.