North Carolina’s Election Administrators receive a “C” grade after attempting to deny third-party candidate Dr. Cornel West from appearing on the 2024 ballot
The Fair Election Fund (FEF), a nonpartisan national election integrity watchdog group, today released a report evaluating the 2024 election administration of the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE), which is the second in a series of reports examining battleground state election administration bodies. In FEF’s report, the NCSBE received a “C” grade due to the multiple failures that undermine the confidence of voters in North Carolina.
In June 2024, the NCSBE initially blocked Justice for All party candidate Dr. Cornel West from appearing on the North Carolina ballot, even after meeting all of the ballot access requirements. The decision raised concerns as the NCBE does not have the power of discretion in these decisions. The NCSBE’s initial decision was eventually overturned by a federal court in August.
Other examples of the NCSBE’s most alarming offenses include:
- Several North Carolina candidates filed a consolidated election protest with the NCSBE that included thousands of invalid ballots, which the board ultimately dismissed and ignored. Examples include:
- 60,273 ballots cast by registered voters whose voter registration database records contained neither a driver’s license number nor the last four digits of a Social Security number
- 266 ballots cast by overseas citizens who have not resided in North Carolina but whose parents or legal guardians were eligible North Carolina voters before leaving the United States
- 240 ballots cast by voters who were serving a felony sentence as of Election Day
- 156 ballots cast by voters who were deceased on Election Day
- 572 ballots cast by voters whose registration was denied or removed
- The Board failed to collect legally required information, like driver’s licenses or Social Security numbers, from more than 225,000 voters.
Click here to read the full report.
BACKGROUND:
- This analysis on the NCSBE is the second in a series of battleground state election administration bodies that FEF is evaluating. The FEF in April launched its first report card, grading Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson a “D” for her failures to bring confidence to Michigan voters.
- In March, the Fair Election Fund filed commentary with the FCC on the issue raised against CBS for unlawful news distortion and coordination with the Harris 2024 Presidential Campaign in the network’s 60 Minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris last year.
- In August of 2024, the Fair Election Fund uncovered 60,000 potential cases of donor fraud involving the Biden-Harris campaign and ActBlue and turned over the data to Republican attorneys general across the country.
- The Fair Election Fund successfully stopped national Democrats’ voter suppression scheme in states across the country last year. In October 2024, FEF launched a six-figure paid media campaign that exposed Marc Elias’s failed racist lawsuits that tried to disenfranchise thousands of black voters who signed petitions to get Cornel West on the ballot in their respective battleground states.
- The Fair Election Fund invested over $750,000 in paid media efforts last year to expose the Democrats’ attempts to block Kamala Harris’s competition from the ballot. The Fair Election Fund invested in states such as North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Click here to learn more about the Democrats’ failed election interference scheme and how the Fair Election Fund stood up for voting rights.
- Last year, the Fair Election Fund launched an investigation examining the jury summons responses and voter rolls in key swing state counties to identify voter fraud.