Conservative columnist Paul Sperry is sounding a warning for Republicans.
“SCOOP: Trump campaign fears >530k Trump voters in western NC cd be disenfranchised by Helene,” Sperry tweeted on Tuesday. “In fact, 26 of 28 counties hit by flooding voted for Trump in '20. ‘There's a 4-to-1 disparity (vs Biden/Harris voters). We're very concerned,’ a Trump insider said. NC=16 electoral votes.”
Now that his potential votes are on the line in flood-ravaged North Carolina, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign has asked the Democrat-controlled State Board of Elections, the legislature, and the Democratic governor to offer those voters exactly the sort of access he and his minions are suing to deny everywhere else.
“The state Board of Elections this week adopted emergency provisions for 13 western counties that allow voters to request absentee ballots in person up until the day before the election, allow people to return absentee ballots to polling places on Election Day, and allow voters to hand-deliver absentee ballots to the state Board of Elections office or to county election board offices other than their home counties,” reported NC Newsline. “The Trump campaign said in a Tuesday press release that along with these changes, it asked Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and the Republican-controlled legislature to allow people to cast provisional ballots in counties where they are not registered.”
Tar Heel State Democrats could have easily blocked much of this—but they haven’t, because Democrats aren’t assholes. Ironically, it is Republicans who have blocked additional Trump campaign requests to allow out-of-county provisional ballot voting, which would allow displaced people to vote at regular polling locations (as opposed to election board offices).
The request makes sense from a voting-rights perspective, as displaced residents may be staying with family and friends, or at hotels outside of their home county. They may not know where a county election office is located or have easy access to one.
North Carolina Republicans also blocked a Democratic effort to extend the voter registration deadline by five days and restore a three-day grace period to receive absentee ballots at local elections offices.
“[Republican] House Rules Chairman Destin Hall said the crisis was no time for ‘partisan games,’” reported NC Newsline. This befuddled state Rep. Caleb Rudow, the Democratic lawmaker who made the suggestions to enable voter participation.
“Lots of folks agree with this idea,” Rudow said. “It’s a bipartisan idea. It’s about voting.”
It’s funny how the Republicans’ “voter fraud” narrative is so ingrained in their psyche, they can’t let go of it—even if it means inconveniencing or flat-out disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of their own voters.
Some context on past North Carolina election results: Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 173,000 votes there in 2016, and he bested President Joe Biden by around 75,000 votes in 2020.
If Sperry is correct that over 530,000 potential Republican voters are affected in western North Carolina, there would be a certain irony to a climate-change driven natural disaster helping cost the GOP this presidential election.
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