Democrats tried and failed to upend voting rules due to Hurricane Helene, desiring to use ballot drop boxes, extend absentee ballots, and lift voter ID requirements, Michelle Woodhouse, Republican congressional chair for the 11th Congressional District in North Carolina, said during an interview on Breitbart News Daily.
Woodhouse detailed some of the overall changes made due to Hurricane Helene, which ravaged a portion of the state. She noted that early voting begins in one week and said absentee ballots had already been going out.
“We had a delay in our absentee ballot process because Robert Kennedy [Jr.] thankfully won his lawsuit to have his name removed from the ballot here in North Carolina, so that delayed our absentee ballots going out, but we already had absentee ballots hitting mailboxes, coming back to the boards of election across the state and here in this district, and we started to have this conversation Sunday after the storm, and it is difficult because you’re seeing the suffering and the importance of the humanitarian effort, but we do have to be aware that we’re coming up to what I would call the … most important election of our lifetime, and we needed to be ready,” she said.
She said they did not fully know the extent of the devastation when they started having these conversations.
Debris is seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Monday, September 30, 2024, in Asheville, North Carolina (Mike Stewart/AP)
“And over the course of each and every day, a lot of conversations with myself, state party leadership, local party leadership, local emergency management, city managers, [we were] really getting a gauge of where we are county by county. And what I really like about the bill that our General Assembly passed yesterday is it puts all the control in the — at the county level. The county boards of election get to determine if changes need to be made and what changes need to be made,” she said, explaining that changes will be made on a county by county basis rather than one sweeping rule.
She explained that five far west counties in the congressional district were not even impacted by Hurricane Helene but were included in the emergency order “because it looked like they were going to get hit, but they didn’t really have any issues.”
Therefore, they do not need to make changes. That is not the case with other counties, which saw towns completely swept away.
“So the control is now with the county boards of election. What changes do you need to make? Do you need to extend hours? Do you need to move locations, add additional early voting locations, and that latter one, the addition of early voting locations has been a critical value-add for all of us here in western North Carolina, because it allows us to put early voting sites at this point, this close to the election, in areas of the community,” she said.
“That makes getting to the polls much easier for those who have been impacted by the storm. But I think the control at the county level is critical in protecting the election versus a state mandate with blanket changes that don’t make sense for most communities,” she said before detailing what Democrats originally wanted to do.
“I’ll tell you what the Democrats wanted — and all of our county boards and our state boards are controlled 3-2 by Democrats, because we have a Democrat governor in North Carolina,” she said. “That’s how the law works here.”
“They wanted drop boxes. They wanted to extend absentee balloting until canvassing. So we would have basically, like, two weeks after the election to turn in absentee ballots. They wanted to lift voter ID, and this is our first general election in North Carolina with voter ID, and there’s already a provision if you’ve lost your ID because of a natural disaster,” Woodhouse explained.
“So the Democrats wanted to basically erase all of North Carolina election law,” she emphasized, noting that Republicans “stood firm” and got a bipartisan solution in turn.
“One of the other components, I think, is really great Mike, is all these changes that happen at the county level must be bipartisan. So the Democrats can’t ram through changes because they have a 3-2 majority,” she said. “Republicans and Democrats have to agree on the changes.”
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She provided an example of how that works.
“A board puts forth a proposal to add an early voting site. Avery County, one of the most devastated counties in the congressional district at the very northern top, they have made the decision to add an early voting site. When the board votes on that, it has Republicans and Democrats — both have to vote in support of it, so the Democrats can’t vote 3-2. No. …. That resolution is off the table then.”
“Republicans and Democrats have to vote if they want to add one at an early voting site — at least one Republican has to vote with those Democrats,” she added, noting that she has “great trust” in these boards of elections moving forward.
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