They aren't even pretending anymore

Boliek appointed people everybody knows are partisan to oversee our elections.

First, I owe an apology to the State Board of Elections. I assumed that Dallas Woodhouse worked for the SBOE since his title was liaison to the county boards of elections. In fact, he worked for the state auditor, Dave Boliek. I say “worked” because on Monday, Woodhouse resigned after several articles emerged showing he had pressured county boards of elections to change early voting schedules.

Woodhouse fell on the sword to protect Boliek and whoever is pulling Boliek’s strings. His resignation letter is a defense of the auditor and himself. He argues that his job was to prepare county boards for “one of the most significant changes in North Carolina election administration in decades.” In reality, nothing changed except who was running the state board. The rules of the county boards and their mission remained the same — or should have.

Pat McCrory didn’t need a county liaison when Republicans took over the boards when he became governor. Roy Cooper didn’t need one when Democrats took over after McCrory lost. The significant change was the state auditor’s office micromanaging boards of election and turning them into a partisan agency.

Woodhouse wrote of Boliek, “I believed in your vision that good government can strengthen both public confidence and public service.” That’s pretty laughable since the auditor put partisan hacks in control of the state board and put Woodhouse in as the heavy to pressure county boards.

I don’t fault Dallas Woodhouse. He knows what his role is in the North Carolina political landscape. He’s a partisan warrior looking for Republican advantage. That’s who he’s been since he left the world of journalism. There’s no reason to expect him to change. He had a job to do.

The question is, who is Dave Boliek and who suggested he needed to hire a bunch of political hacks to run the state board of elections? He was a Democrat until about three or four years ago. The man changed parties after the Republican Party had folded to Donald Trump and election denialism became a core tenet of the GOP.

It was one thing to change from Democrat to Republican when Reagan was redefining conservatism. It’s another to switch to the GOP as it became the party of grifters, racists, and authoritarians. That says a lot about a person.

Who would have suggested Boliek hire Woodhouse or appoint Francis De Luca board chair? I doubt he knew those folks very well. If he did, he knew that both were hard-core partisans, not election professionals. He clearly didn’t care much about the appearance of fairness in the administration of elections. On the contrary, he shoved it in our faces that he was turning the agency into a partisan tool.

I don’t really think Boliek came up with this plan on his own. I suspect it came from Republicans in the legislature who consider democracy a nuisance and for whom power is all that matters. Regardless, Boliek has diminished public trust in a vital public agency and done so intentionally. They aren’t even pretending anymore.

The GOP has been attacking democracy in North Carolina since they took power. They were early adopters of the extreme gerrymandering that has infected the country. They passed the “monster” voter suppression bill that was struck down for targeting African Americans with “surgical precision.” They tried to steal a state Supreme Court seat but were harshly rebuked by a Trump-appointed federal judge. Boliek is just the latest blunt instrument Republicans are using to pummel democracy.