Cumberland County has a new Board of Elections because of a new law enacted by the Republican-led General Assembly intended to take power from Democratic Gov. Josh Stein.
The state Board of Elections made the county board appointments on Tuesday, and Republican State Auditor Dave Boliek picked new chairs to preside over the boards. Cumberland County’s new board has a 3-2 Republican majority, reversing the Democratic majority that was in place before Tuesday. The local board oversees elections in Cumberland County and the eight-person Elections Office, which during elections hires hundreds of temporary workers for polling sites.
Here are the members of the Cumberland County Board of Elections:
- Republican Linda Devore, board chair. She served on the previous board.
- Republican Ryan Eric Johnson.
- Republican Brenda May “Bree” Eldridge.
- Democrat Irene Grimes. She was the previous chair.
- Democrat Derek Edmonds. He served on the previous board.
Republican James H. Baker and Democrat Billy R. King left the county board.
The new board members will be sworn in on July 22, Devore told CityView.
As chair, Devore said she is looking at some of the difficulties the Elections Office had last year and aims to work with the staff to make operations more smooth. For example, the office got behind in processing absentee ballots in the 2024 election, and early voting results were not determined until late on Election Day.
“We’re always looking to improve the way we manage our resources and our staff, as well as the relationships,” Devore said. “Over the years there have just been a lot of challenges in that respect. So always looking to improve that. We have good people, and they do good work. They work hard.”
She said she is excited to welcome the two new board members. Eldridge is an accountant, and Johnson is an appraiser.“I think they’re going to be great assets to our board,” Devore said. “Both are very detail-minded people.”
New law flips power, still excludes independent voters
State law mandates that every member of the five-person state and county elections boards be a member of one of the two largest political parties in the state: the Democrats and the Republicans. Each party is guaranteed at least two of the five seats on each board. No party is allowed more than three seats.
Under a new law enacted in December, the state auditor selects the chair of each board.
Before the change in law, the governor picked the chair of each elections board.
As Auditor Boliek is a Republican and Gov. Stein is a Democrat, the Republicans who ran the General Assembly in December yanked power away from the Democrats when they took that appointment power from the governor and gave it to the auditor.
Just as Democratic governors in the past picked Democrats to chair the county boards, and Republican governors picked Republicans, Boliek picked fellow Republicans to chair county boards statewide.
Independent voters, also called unaffiliated voters, are still prohibited from serving on elections boards (as they were under the old law) despite numbering more than 2.8 million people statewide. Members of smaller political parties, such as the Libertarian Party, are likewise blocked by law from serving on elections boards.
North Carolina has more independent voters (37.8%) than Democratic voters (30.7%) or Republican voters (30.4%). Members of small political parties accounted for 1.1% of the state’s electorate as of June 21. There were 7.53 million voters in total.
Cumberland County had 214,798 registered voters as of June 21. According to the state’s data, 38.3% were Democrats, 36.7% were independent, and 23.4% were Republicans. The rest, 1.6%, were registered with third parties.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
Did you find this story useful or interesting? It was made possible by donations from readers like you to the News Foundation of Greater Fayetteville, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization committed to an informed democracy in Fayetteville and Cumberland County.
Please consider making a tax-deductible donation so CityView can bring you more news and information like this.
