I noted last year that the North Carolina State Board of Elections (SBE) needed to reform its new party petition process after problems with several party petitions over the past several years.
They have obliged and then some.
The SBE wants to add a new chapter to its administrative code focused solely on petitions. The chapter is divided into six sections: general rules, petition verification, new party petitions, unaffiliated candidate petitions, write-in candidate petitions, and petitions to get on the ballot without paying a filing fee. Below is a brief summary of each. The purpose of the new rules is to make the petition review process more systematic after problems with the current process were exposed ahead of the 2024 election.
Each heading has a link to the appropriate section.
Section .0100: General rules
This section informs county election boards that they should follow procedures in Section .0200 (see below) when they are “required by law to verify a petition on behalf of a local jurisdiction, but the petition is not filed with the county board.”
It also lists the petitions to be covered by the regulations:
- New political party recognition
- Putting an unaffiliated candidate on the ballot
- Having write-in candidate votes counted
- Candidate filing without paying a filing fee
- Getting on the presidential primary ballot if not on the candidate list provided by the party
- And, just to make sure they covered everything, “Petitions calling for any election or referendum that are filed with a board of elections”
County election officials shall verify petition signers’ signatures and information (address, eligibility to vote and sign petitions, etc.). Only wet ink signatures can be accepted. They will put a checkmark on the original signature sheet next to every signature that will be counted toward the required total number of signatures needed to be approved. They will put an “X” by signatures that will not be counted and briefly note the reason from a list provided in the rule.
Signers may ask for their names to be removed from a petition. If the petitioner still has the signature sheet, he or she must strike through the signer’s signature and write “removed” next to the signature. If the signature sheet is in the hands of a board of elections, the signer must submit a completed “petition signature removal form” to the board to get the name removed. Signatures cannot be removed after the board has “taken final action” (approval or rejection) on the petition.
Prospective new parties cannot use a name that is too similar to existing parties, as determined by the SBE executive director.
All signature sheets must have the name of the prospective party’s chair. The petitioner must inform the SBE within five business days if there is a new chair or the chair’s address or phone number changes. If there is a change in chair, signature pages with the old chair’s name will not be accepted. (Petitioners could address that by submitting the sheets with the old chair’s name before the new chair takes over.)
Prospective parties that have not gathered enough signatures to qualify may request that their target be changed to the next election. However, that is of limited utility since “only those verified signatures that were gathered during the election cycle pertaining to the petition may continue to be counted for the petition under the new target election.”
The prospective party must provide the SBE with documentation of how petition circulators will “inform the petition signer of the prospective party’s general purpose and intent when collecting signatures.” State law requires it (GS 163‑96.(b)). The prospective party may also submit additional supporting documentation. This is a welcome change. Part of the problem in past new party petitions is that questions over petitioners’ informing signers of their party’s “general purpose and intent” were not raised until the end of the process after the signatures had been submitted. This should eliminate that problem.
When the prospective party submits their petition sheets verified by the county boards, they must also submit signed affidavits from each of their petition circulators attesting that they told signers the general intent and purpose of their party. SBE staff will then review a random sample of 1,000 signatures to confirm that they meet the required criteria. Part of that analysis would determine if, when the sample is extrapolated to the whole petition, it would not have enough verified signatures to meet the required threshold.
Hopefully, this more systematic approach will make the party petition process less capricious and “lessen the chance that future party petitions will turn into lawsuits.”
Election officials will cancel the petition of anyone attempting to run as an unaffiliated candidate if the prospective candidate does not meet the constitutional and statutory qualifications for the office. If voter registration records indicate that the prospective candidate does not live within the district he or she filed for, the board will give the prospective candidate an opportunity to update the registration. Once those hurdles have been cleared, the elections board where the candidate submitted the petitions shall inspect them to determine if the prospective candidate has enough signatures to get on the ballot.
This section is similar to the section on unaffiliated candidates in terms of candidate qualifications.
The pertinent part of this very short section states, “The final action on an in lieu of filing fee petition shall be the board of elections’ notice to the prospective candidate stating whether they have met the requirements for their petition.” For more on the petition process for those who wish to be a candidate without paying a filing fee, see GS 163‑107.1.
How to make a public comment on the proposed petition rules
If you want to put a comment on the proposed rules in the public record. You have several options.
First, you can attend a public hearing at 10:00 AM on Monday, April 14, in the SBE Office, Third Floor, Dobbs Building, 430 N. Salisbury St., Raleigh, NC 27603. A word of warning; it could be a lonely affair. The last SBE public hearing I attended had five people in the room: me, two staffers, and two journalists. I was the only one who spoke.
You have three easier options:
- Online on the public comment portal
- Email your comment to [email protected]
- Mail your comment to Attn: Rulemaking Coordinator, P.O. Box 27255, Raleigh, NC 27611-7255
The deadline for all three is May 16, 2025.
