State Auditor Dave Boliek Handed North Carolina’s County Election Boards to Election Deniers

WASHINGTON, DC — Five weeks before Election Day, a new investigation reveals that election deniers are running county election boards across North Carolina, the bodies that set early voting hours, polling locations, and Sunday voting. Voting Rights Lab flagged 18 county officials across 17 counties as “identified actors of concern,” including chairs handpicked by Republican State Auditor Dave Boliek after the GOP legislature stripped the appointment power from the governor and Boliek handed Republicans control of all 100 county boards.

Clay County chair James Davis urged Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act after the 2020 election. Henderson County chair Linda Rebuck was reprimanded for spreading false claims about the 2024 election, then promoted by Boliek. Lee County’s Jay DeLancy, whose voter roll purges were ruled illegal, helped push to eliminate Sunday voting. Boliek’s office refused to say whether he vetted any of them.

North Carolina’s elections remain safe, with layers of safeguards standing between these conspiracy theorists and the count.

“Dave Boliek looked at North Carolina’s worst cranks, kooks, and conspiracy theorists and decided they were exactly the kind of people he wanted running elections,” said Mally Smith, Try And Stop Us Senior Adviser. “North Carolina Republicans rewrote the law, seized every county board, and stacked them with people who still can’t accept that Trump lost in 2020. They’re terrified of North Carolina voters. Here’s the good news: none of them get the final say. The best answer to this garbage is to exercise that right they’re trying so hard to take away: go vote.”