HB 691, the Voter Protection and Reliance Act, and Preventing Post-Election Rule Changes in North Carolina

“The Voter Protection and Reliance Act puts firmly into the law what most of us already know: it’s wrong to throw out votes by changing the rules of an election after it is finished.  Changing the rules after the election is finished disenfranchises voters who relied on those procedures.  It violates their right to due process and, when we see challenges targeting specific voters to overturn an election result, it violates their right to equal protection under the law.

Imagine if every close election becomes a legal battle where each side picks out the voters they think voted against them and then schemes up legal challenges to throw out enough ballots to win.  In fact, we don’t have to imagine because that’s precisely what is happening with Jefferson Griffin’s belated challenge to the rules governing the North Carolina Supreme Court election.  As ProPublica reported in December 2024, a board member for the Election Integrity Network discussed months before the election how, in a close loss, they could protest ballots using the argument Griffin is now making.  That shows how this is a premeditated voter suppression tactic, one drawn up in advance but filed after the voters have spoken.  Ironically, other members of that group, at the time, deemed the argument too extreme.

The Voter Protection and Reliance Act would take us off this dangerous path.  It prohibits any administrative body or court from refusing to count ballots or certify an election based on a law, judicial ruling, or legal interpretation not in effect on election day.  It also accelerates litigation filed before an election to ensure voters get a final decision before they vote.

Whether it’s kids on the playground or citizens exercising their fundamental right to vote, everyone intuitively understands that the time to debate the rules of the game is before it starts.  We shouldn’t need a statute to compel this commonsense notion, but since we do, the Voter Protection and Reliance Act provides it.”