Citizen initiatives give voters a powerful “direct democracy” tool, enabling them to collect signatures and put a proposed law or constitutional amendment directly on the ballot for state voters to consider. These initiatives empower voters to take action on issues legislatures have failed to take action on or have set aside. Citizen initiatives are responsible for protecting reproductive rights in Kansas, Michigan, and Ohio. While close to half of the states allow citizen initiatives, North Carolina does not.   

After two caucuses on citizen initiatives at last year’s LWVNC convention indicated strong support for them, the LWVNC Board authorized a statewide study, which is currently underway. However, before LWVNC actively supports an issue, it must develop a formal position on the issue.

As part of this process, the Citizen Initiative Study Group wants to share and receive information from League members across the state. An initial statewide briefing and member dialogue will be held Tuesday, May 14, from 7 to 9 p.m. via Zoom. For more details and to register, click here.

• Republican nomination for lieutenant governor:
  Hal Weatherman
  Jim O’Neill

• Republican nomination for state auditor:
  Jack Clark
  Dave Boliek

•  Republican nomination for U.S. House District 13:
  Kelly Daughtry
  Brad Knott

• Voters who live in the district for which a second primary is conducted and are registered with the political party of the candidates.
• Unaffiliated voters who live in that district and didn’t vote in the primary, or who voted the ballot of the party for which the second primary is being held.

Below are highlights from the LWV of North Carolina's latest Legislative Update. Read full blog here.

Bills of Interest/Concern 

HB 942 SHALOM Act: a potentially dangerous effort to define antisemitism that will sweep protected speech into hate speech.

SB 880 No Deepfakes in Election Commission Act: Democrat-only bill has problems with free speech issues.

HB 10 Require Sheriffs to Cooperate with ICE: passed in N.C. Senate along party lines, sent to the N.C. House for review before it goes to the governor.

SB 892 Student Voter ID Grant Program/Community Colleges: filed with no action taken.

Update on Election Bill Implementation SL 2023-140

Voter ID Litigation: Trial began Monday 5/6 in federal court for the lawsuit brought by NAACP and Forward Justice.

Absentee Ballot Signature Verification Pilot: The goal of the pilot project is to find out how many ballots would have been identified for potential removal due to signature match failure during the 2024 March Primary

• 10-county pilot project – Bertie, Cherokee, Durham, Halifax, Henderson, Jones, Montgomery, Pamlico, Rowan, and Wilkes

• NCSBE has not yet announced the vendor who will supply the software to the counties. 

• Once the software is set up, the signature verification will take place in a two-stage process, where the software will either accept or reject the signature match. 

• All absentee ballots rejected by the software match will be manually reviewed by CBOE members during open public meetings. Stay tuned! 

• The public is not allowed to record the signatures.

• NCSBE has issued guidance for the manual review of signatures: 2024-04 Absentee Ballot Signature Verification Pilot Program 
  

Same-Day Voter Registration: We continue to be concerned that confusion about what is an acceptable HAVA document in addition to problems with the new mail verification requirement will cause more voters to have problems with SDR. Continue to inform voters about the need for proof of address and to “check their mail” for elections-related mailings from the CBOE.

Non-Citizen List Maintenance: The new law requires the courts to forward to the NCSBE the names of people excused for jury duty because they gave the excuse, non-citizen. To our knowledge, the procedure for reviewing the voter rolls and removing any of those voters has not been revealed. However, the NCSBE has introduced the procedure for tracking those records, 2024-03 Retention of Election Records.

Voter Registration Form Changes: In 2023, a complaint was brought to the NCSBE that led to the ID portion of Box 3 on the voter registration form becoming required. In December 2023, this went into effect, and a new voter registration form was issued. Previously, if this section were left blank, the applicant would still become registered but must show additional documentation when they vote for the first time. Now, if this section is left blank, the individual’s application cannot be processed and the individual will not be registered to vote until they submit a new registration form with all required fields (including Box 3) filled out.

• LWV Voter Registration – make sure that the voter completes the form, including the ID portion on Box 3.

• We are working to get clarification of what additional documentation will be required for voters who check the box that they cannot provide a NCDL or SSN number at the time of submitting the voter registration form. 

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