[Carolina Public Press] NC Senate Splits Massive Elections Bill into Two

By Sarah Michels, Carolina Public Press
July 28, 2026

With a few changes, the North Carolina Senate passed its version of this year’s elections bill on Tuesday, a month after the state House passed theirs. 

State senators divided the wide-ranging bill into two separate election bills. While most of the provisions are the same, senators made one major addition: one of the Senate bills would cut the early voting period from 17 to 10 days for primary, runoff and special elections.

A few provisions in the House election bill also were missing from the Senate’s bills. They include a proposed second try at a signature verification pilot program, restrictions on foreign nationals’ financial involvement in elections and an explicit ban on so-called Never Residents’ ability to vote in federal elections in North Carolina.

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Never Residents are U.S. citizens who inherited citizenship from their parents or guardians who last lived in North Carolina, despite never having lived in the state themselves. Recent state court rulings prohibit them from voting in state and local contests. The House’s version of the elections bill would have extended that to federal elections. The Senate leaves it out, though, as well as a provision that would have required overseas and military voters to provide photo identification to vote. 

The Senate bills still include extended deadlines for counting ballots and fixing certain issues, an auditor-led post election audit and the ability to challenge ballots up to five days after Election Day, among other measures that were in the House bill. 

The first of the two Senate election bills won unanimous approval, but the second passed along party lines after much debate and a series of failed Democratic amendments. 

Now, the bills go back to the House for a process called concurrence, where lawmakers will decide whether to approve the Senate’s changes and send the bills onto the governor or reject them and instead negotiate a final bill in a conference committee including a few lawmakers. 

The first elections bill

A few constants have been present throughout the year-long process of drafting, rewriting and passing the election omnibus: one is a series of deadline extensions for voters and county election staff.

In late 2024, lawmakers passed a bill that cut the time voters had to cure, or fix, certain ballot issues from the day before the county canvass, 10 days after Election Day, to the Friday after the election. County election staff faced the same tightened deadlines for counting provisional and absentee ballots. 

While some counties could handle the change, many larger counties said it was an impossible feat. 

From the beginning, the election omnibus loosened the new deadlines slightly, from three days after the election to five business days after Election Day. 

Voters whose registration form is missing something, like a signature, would have until the fifth business day after the election to resolve the issue, as opposed to noon on the Friday after Election Day. Voters would have the same amount of time to fix certain provisional and absentee ballot issues. 

County boards would have until the fifth business day after the election to count all provisional ballots, except those that they suspect might be false; they would be able to continue working on those until the county canvass. They would also have until the fifth business day post election to announce how many absentee ballots were cast. 

Under the bill, staff could start counting early voting ballots and absentee ballots before polls close on Election Day, as long as they specify when and where they will do it at least two weeks beforehand. When counting absentee ballots, they would be allowed to take breaks if needed, as opposed to continuing to count until the tally is complete. 

The Senate’s new version of House Bill 834 also clarifies when ballots of voters who died between casting their ballot and vote counting could and couldn’t be counted. 

Under the proposed legislation, if a voter died by 11:59 the day before Election Day, their vote could not count. 

In recent years, some county board members have counted a handful of dead voter ballots, which spurred a desire to clarify the law. 

When someone sues over state election law, the case typically begins in the Wake County Superior Court. Republican lawmakers want that to change. The election bill would allow plaintiffs to choose between the Wake County court or the superior court where they reside. 

Opponents of this idea say that it invites “venue shopping,” a practice where people who want to file lawsuits try to pick the judge or court they believe will be most amenable to their claims. 

Supporters argue that the workload should be spread around.

“It could be that all the judicial wisdom of the western civilization is housed in Wake County, but I highly doubt that,” Sen. Brad Overcash, R-Gaston, said during floor debate. 

Finally, the first elections bill outlines rules for storing and securing voting equipment, paper ballots and electronic ballot records between the end of the early voting period and Election Day. 

HB834 originally would have provided anyone getting a hunting or fishing license the opportunity to register to vote. That is no longer included in the bill. 

The second elections bill

House Bill 958 has been the main vehicle for election policy throughout the 2025-26 legislative session. It still contains the bulk of election law changes.

The Senate’s version keeps provisions that would standardize municipal election dates based on the election type and method, raise certain campaign finance reporting thresholds, and allow nonpartisan candidates to designate nonpartisan election observers in local elections. 

It would also greenlight the State Board of Elections’ process of investigating and potentially removing voters identified as potentially ineligible to vote through the federal Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system. 

North Carolina gives the Department of Homeland Security bulk voter registration information, which they run through a series of federal databases to determine whether people on the rolls are dead, potential noncitizens or otherwise ineligible to vote. 

The State Board of Elections has already uncovered lists of potentially ineligible voters. The bill allows the board to take steps to remove these voters through their own process. 

As part of this effort, the bill would require the Division of Motor Vehicles to share Social Security Numbers with the State Board of Elections on a monthly basis for voter registration and list maintenance. DMV officials could only register people to vote if they affirmatively state that they are US citizens. 

Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, D-Wake, said the SAVE system is known to have gaps, leading to inclusion of high numbers of eligible voters in its lists of potential noncitizens. He worries that giving the State Board access to full Social Security numbers would further “feed” an unreliable federal process. 

Under the bill, the auditor would randomly audit a series of counties after every election is certified, with each county being subject to an audit at least once every six years. The audit would not alter any vote counts, but would instead “create continuous improvements,” said Sen. Warren Daniel, R-Burke. 

Chaudhuri also took issue with the post-election audit. He said he would prefer to hand the job to a team of nonpartisan experts, as opposed to a partisan, elected official. Sen. Val Applewhite, D-Cumberland, said it was like the auditor was “grading his own homework,” considering that he appoints county board chairs. 

Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, commented that the auditor was elected by the people to audit various agencies, and so nobody else was better for the role. 

The legislation would require at least four emergency Election Day assistants in case precinct officials are removed for incompetency or failure to do their jobs. If a precinct official was removed once, they would not be allowed to serve again. 

It would also require any candidate running in a partisan primary to have been registered with that party for at least a year. However, each party’s state executive committee could grant exceptions. This is designed to block efforts like those of Educators on the Ballot, registered Democrats or unaffiliated voters who switched their registration to Republican to compete in the Republican primary this year. None of them came close to winning. 

The legislation would add the ability for early voters’ ballots to be challenged up to the third day after the election. Previously, only absentee and provisional ballots could be challenged. 

Finally, the second elections bill would cut the primary early voting period from 17 to 10 days. Some county election directors are on board. It leaves the general election early voting period alone, for now. 

Democrats argued that primaries are where many races are decided in North Carolina, particularly on the legislative and Congressional level, so it didn’t make sense to limit the early voting period. 

Hise countered that in some counties, more poll workers than voters are at the polls during some of the middle early voting days. To him, the cost doesn’t seem worth it. He said he doesn’t think the change will impact turnout. 

What's next?

The House is set to return to the legislature on Thursday, July 30. They may or may not take action then. If they don’t, lawmakers are next scheduled to return to Raleigh on Aug. 31.  

This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.