If you’re worried the Trump regime is planning to disrupt mid-term elections, you’re probably on to something.
First Kristi Noem said they wanted to be sure that the “right people voted for the right leaders.” Then there’s Trump’s push to end mail-in voting and his statement that “Republicans should take over and nationalize elections.” And ICE on patrol in polling places? It all repeats the Trump playbook: stoke doubt, distrust, and fear.
And just last week the U.S. Supreme Court handed down Louisiana vs Callais, setting back the right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity. In North Carolina, the pattern is stark and equally concerning. Manipulating rules, narrowing the electorate, and then pretending the result is “election integrity.”
Here are four of the worst, and most recent, examples of suppression policies already in place in North Carolina:
- Taking over the NC Board of Elections. In 2023 Republicans finally won a long-standing effort to strip the Governor of control of the state Board of Elections, placing it under control of the State Auditor, Republican Dave Boliek instead. Under Boliek, the state BOE has turned over our voting records to an unreliable Federal data system (see more below), has removed early voting sites for students at three universities, and made it easier to reject voter ID exception forms.
- Forcing voters to prove citizenship through a flawed database check. Again, the North Carolina Republican controlled State Board of Elections voted to send voter-registration data to the Department of Homeland Security for a SAVE database review, even though that system has a record of false flags that can burden eligible voters with extra-proof requirements, if they have them. Many do not. That’s not democracy; it’s a presumption of guilt.
- Rigging district maps to lock in power. North Carolina Republicans are once again using gerrymandering to entrench themselves. As a result of this gerrymandering, the Congressional delegation of a 50-50 swing state is composed of 10 Republicans and 4
Democrats. Now the Republicans are trying for an 11 to 3 split. (A previous map drawn by the courts gave us a map that reflected the political make-up of the state, an evenly split 7 to 7 delegation. When Republicans gained control of the NC Supreme Court, they quickly overturned this even split.) No wonder voters quickly learn that their voices don’t matter. Previously, electoral district maps were redrawn every 10 years, as our state Constitution mandates.
- Building barriers under the banner of “integrity.” Across North Carolina and nationally, Republican-led efforts have included stricter registration rules, limits on early voting, tougher absentee-ballot rules, and broader intimidation through election-denial rhetoric and eligibility challenges. These tactics don’t strengthen democracy; they shrink participation, especially for Black voters, women whose names change, and people who rely on voting by mail or flexible voting access. For information on new barriers to voting recently proposed by the NC Board of Elections, click here.
Why are these policies so destructive?
The modern suppression playbook keeps returning to the same old logic: if you can’t win a fair contest, make the contest harder to enter. That’s a betrayal of democracy, and it turns voting from a right into a test of endurance.
North Carolina is not an outlier in the race to suppress the vote. It’s a leading example of a broader national trend. Across more than 30 states, restrictive bills have been introduced, with many aimed at voter ID, registration obstacles, reduced early voting, and tighter rules on mail-in ballots. The national message is the same as the North Carolina message: protect power first, then dress it up as reform.
Voter suppression corrupts the premise that every eligible citizen has an equal claim on the ballot. In a supposedly democratic republic, that is the line that should never be crossed.
The Good News
Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson reports that Democrats are ready “to walk across hot coals to get to the polls, with a stunning 82 percent saying “it’s extremely important to win the midterms and to stop the Trump agenda.”
Democrats need to use this enthusiasm to motivate citizens to vote, to campaign for Democratic candidates, and to volunteer through our state and county Democratic Parties to work at the polls. Our presence and enthusiasm can make all the difference.
Nan Nixon contributed to this article.
