by Christopher Cooper
A new election bill (H958) is making the rounds in the North Carolina General Assembly. Well, it’s kind of new. It’s actually an old bill (originally introduced in 2025) that has been revived and revised through what’s known as a Proposed Committee Substitute (PCS).1
There’s a lot in it and the details get confusing, but it is not true that all of it is about “voter suppression.” It’s also not true that it’s all non-controversial. Like most bills of this length, it is full of ideas—about 40 total policy changes. Some of these changes expand voter access, some restrict voter access, some change institutional powers, and some are so benign as to not require comment.
If you like being in the weeds, I encourage you to read the whole thing.2 For those with other things to do, however, I list ten of the highlights3 below and then expand a bit on three provisions of the bill—one which changes the rules around party switching for candidates, one which changes what county election board members can (and cannot say), and one which would ban ranked choice voting.
The Quick Hits
Currently if you donate anything less than $50 to a candidate for office your identity is not disclosed. This bill would raise that threshold to $100.
Adds the opportunity for nonpartisan candidates to designate up to one observer per polling place. This would bring it more in line with the process for people who identify with a party.
Alters the law about what happens if a person dies after casting their ballot to specify that if an absentee or early voter dies after casting their ballot but before election day, their ballot will not count if it is contested. If a voter dies on election day, however, their ballot would count.
Extends the post-election window for counting provisional ballots and resolving absentee ballot deficiencies from three business days to five business days after the election.
Extends the window for voters to fix problems with their voter registration — such as an incomplete form or a mismatch in identification numbers — from three business days after the election to five business days. This gives voters a bit more time to resolve paperwork issues that might otherwise cause their ballot not to count.
Requires overseas civilian voters to provide documentation verifying their last U.S. address when registering to vote. Also requires all UOCAVA voters — a federally recognized category that includes both overseas civilians and military voters — to submit a photo ID when casting their ballot, though voters who fail to include it have an opportunity to correct the omission before the county canvass.
Raises the threshold for requiring candidates for local office to file campaign finance reports. Currently the threshold is $1,000 in contributions, loans, or expenditures. This bill would raise it to $3,000.
Prohibits paying petition circulators based on the number of signatures they collect.
Gives the State Auditor new authority to conduct post-election audits of county election systems after each general election. Any findings from these audits cannot be used to challenge the results of an election.
Moves the date of nonpartisan municipal primaries — the elections that determine who runs your city council, school board, and local special districts — from early October to mid-September, about six weeks earlier.
Three With More Detail
Voter Turnout Promotion Ban. The PCS resurrects a rule that was in the second version of the bill, then removed from the third version of the bill, specifying that county and state board of elections members cannot “make written or oral statements intended for general distribution or dissemination to the public at large encouraging or promoting voter turnout in any election.”4
If passed, North Carolina would appear to be the only state in the nation with such a law. It would also generate a number of questions about what “promoting voter turnout” entails.5
Would board members who support handing out “I voted” stickers be considered “promoting voter turnout?” Would board members supporting national voter registration day (a day intended to get more people to register to vote and to cast a vote—and one that draws bipartisan support), be banned?
Such a rule would also seem to run counter to trends in the professional field of election administration that encourage “voter-centric election administration.” Indeed, the entire idea of the bipartisan “Help America Vote Act” which board members must follow was to increase voter access and make voting easier. Is that akin to increasing voter turnout?
Election boards routinely provide information about registration deadlines, voting locations, absentee ballot procedures, and other aspects of the electoral process. The line between informing voters and “encouraging turnout” is not always obvious. Maybe this can be worked out in practice, but the answer it is not immediately apparent.
It is worth noting that higher voter turnout is a nonpartisan goal. A recent book, The Turnout Myth, by political scientists Daron Shaw and John Petrocik explodes the misconception that higher turnout is better for Democrats.
Switching Parties to Run for Office. The 2026 primaries featured something a little unusual in North Carolina politics—a number of candidates—most notably, Kate Barr—switching from Democratic or Unaffiliated registration to run in the Republican primary. Although smart people might disagree about the ethics of such a move, the legality was not in question—as long as they switched their party registration more than 90 days before the election, they were able to run as a member of their new party.
The proposed law would change the time period when this is allowed from 90 days to a full year. Presumably, this will lead to fewer candidates running for a party nomination of a party they didn’t believe in. This was not in the previous iterations of the bill.
There are two notable exceptions to this proposed rule, however. If a party has been in existence two years or less, it is exempted from this rule. Also, the executive committee of the party can waive the rule if they decide to make an exception.
This is clearly a change that would strengthen political parties in North Carolina, and increase control the parties have over primary elections.
Ranked Choice Voting. The proposed bill would also ban ranked choice voting (RCV)—a voting system where voters rank candidates in order of preference, rather than simply casting a vote for a candidate, or abstaining from voting for that candidate.6
As I detailed in a piece for The Assembly, North Carolina experimented with ranked choice voting in 2008, but the provision that allowed for the experiment was allowed to sunset.
In recent years, more places have used ranked choice voting, which has increased its salience for the average voter. Although there’s been a ton of research on the effects of RCV, it has not produced a neat, commonly accepted set of findings. Some studies suggest it can improve voter satisfaction and encourage more civil campaigns, while others find limited effects on electoral outcomes and raise concerns about voter confusion.
The research is more consistent on attitudes, however. On average, younger people and Democrats are more likely to support RCV, whereas people of color and Republicans are less likely to support it.
North Carolina does not have any ranked choice voting currently, so this provision wouldn’t change anything in the short-run, but would make it harder for a future legislature to allow for it.
Wrapping Up
This is a big, complicated bill with dozens of provisions. Most people will not support or oppose everything in this bill, but will rather find pieces they like, pieces they don’t, and a whole lot that they couldn’t care less about.
It looks like it’s going to be heard in committee on Tuesday. If we have learned anything about this process since the bill was introduced in 2025, it’s that seemingly minor changes can make a big difference.
The details matter.
If you don’t speak in policy wonkery, a PCS is akin to doing track changes to a document in a word processing package. So, when the committee votes on the bill, they get to decide on the PCS version, not the version that was already under consideration.
Here’s the latest version, but you can also read and compare that to the previous versions.
These are not necessarily the 10 “most important” but merely ten than caught my eye. There are others. Again—if you have the time and inclination to read the whole bill, I encourage you to do so.
It’s important to note that this would only apply to board members—not state or county election directors or staff.
I can’t find any other state that has such a provision. If anyone knows of such, an example, however, please let me know.
The bill actually refers to “rank” choice voting, rather than the more commonly accepted “ranked” choice voting.
