Drop Sunday
Republican Trump operatives have been busy in North Carolina trying to overwhelm local leadership and take control of the vote before the midterms, but thanks to an inside leak, we know the truth.
Republicans in North Carolina, who control state and county election boards, have attempted to move early voting sites off college campuses, which would reduce Sunday voting in a blatant attempt to make it harder for students and Black voters to cast ballots.
Republican state lawmakers in North Carolina stripped Democratic Governor Josh Stein of responsibility for overseeing state and county election boards in 2024. They replaced him with North Carolina State Auditor and Trump loyalist Dave Boliek. Under Boliek and his appointed lackey, Republican operative Dallas Woodhouse, the state board of elections and all 100 county election boards have switched to GOP majorities, which ratified legislation shifting the majority of the state board and all 100 county election boards from Democratic to Republican control.
In counties with heavy GOP majorities like Jackson, Pasquotank, and Wake Counties, Republicans at the state level used tactics, employed by Woodhouse, to pressure local election officials to move early voting sites away from college campuses. Last week, according to reports by the local news organization The Daily Advance, a recent text message between Woodhouse and Larry Beatty, the Republican chairman of the five-member Pasquotank Board of Elections, revealed the crux of the Republican strategy to turn down the liberal vote in the Midterms.
Dallas Woodhouse, the former executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party, earned a salary of $110,000 to serve as an election “liaison” with the county boards. Boliek positioned Woodhouse to influence and control election workers within the Research Triangle, a region home to three powerhouse universities rife with liberal and independent voters.
Woodhouse and Boliek worked to ensure that the new Jackson County Board of Elections would shut down a polling place on campus at Western Carolina University. In the Triangle, the Wake County Board of Elections also recently voted to eliminate a longtime early voting site at North Carolina State’s Student Union and to move it to a remote part of campus, which was also helpful.
“Drop Sunday,” texted Woodhouse to Chair Larry Beatty, in an effort to pressure county board members to reduce their early voting locations, a move that Republicans believe will directly help their party win the election.
“Don’t let them have a vote,” read another text message from Dallas Woodhouse to Bill Thompson, the Republican Chairman of the Jackson County Board, regarding an upcoming vote of the county board on a new early-voting plan, according to records obtained by another news outlet, NC Local. Woodhouse also gave Thompson instructions on how to respond to questions from a local reporter.
“Go ahead and tell Lynn Bonner when she calls that there are concerns by you, local party members people in Raleigh that opening a new site and closing a long standing one in A general is bad practice. This has nothing to do with voting or not voting on campus,” read the text from Woodhouse to Thompson. “If you want text her this and anybody else who needs a quote,” Woodhouse continued, including Bonner’s cell phone number.
Woodhouse continued to sell his proposition to Thompson via text: “There are strong feeling[sic] among people in the local party, community members and folks in Raleigh that it is unwise to close that Rec center site that has been used for nearly two decades by community members and open a new site that has never been used in a high stakes general election. The concern is less about where the new site is, but the appropriateness and wisdom of closing a long standing community site the public has long vote at. It’s just not an operationally sound move.”
Ultimately, Thompson and fellow board member Jay Pavey said they were pressured by leaders at the state level at that June meeting to vote against a plan to have a campus-based early voting site at Western Carolina University. Pavey cited “pressure from Raleigh” before breaking with his party to join the board’s two Democratic members in favor of a plan to bring a site back on campus.
On May 28, Woodhouse flexed his power again when he sent a text to Thompson that also addressed Christian Frailey, chief counsel of the North Carolina Republican Party, and Gail Debnam, a Jackson County resident and former board member who Woodhouse said was interested in again serving on the Jackson board, after a new position became available days earlier.
“Christian: Gail Debnam, former Jackson BOE chair is rejoining the Jackson County Board. Please help her with the paperwork,” the text reads. “We will get it to the NCSBE and they may have to call a special meeting for the appointment (FYI, does anybody have Wes’s actual resignation letter?)”
“Gail understands we can’t shut down the Cullowee [sic] Rec center to move to the Health and Human Services [sic] building. The four sites in the primary worked fine and we want that to the status Quo going forward. Gail, thanks for your willingness.”
In another message the same day, Woodhouse sent a County Board of Elections application to Jackson County Republican Chair Justin Castle and Thompson confirming: “the new member. needs to fill this out and send to ncgop or me.”
Now that this information has been made public, Democrats in North Carolina are concerned by the moves just ahead of a huge Midterm election. As a result of the many proposed changes, which have all failed to earn unanimous votes from the county boards, more than a dozen local issues are in dispute and will be resolved in August by the State Board of Elections, which also has a Republican majority appointed by Mr. Boliek.
Dallas Woodhouse resigned on Monday due to the leaked texts in an effort to save the work he and Boliek had already accomplished, but the issue of whether Woodhouse was able to actually do any irreparable harm this close to a major election is something that we won’t be able to answer clearly until after the election. Until then, we will have to take solace in the fact that on one day in May, a good ole boy from North Carolina, who was heavy into local Republican politics and looking to get further, stood up to the Trump carpetbaggers and refused to put party over country. Little miracles.
Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter and is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines and analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.
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