The Winston-Salem Journal has reported that the election reform legislation, recently signed into law by Governor McCrory, will allow “the Democratic and Republican parties to provide up to 10 observers at every precinct.” This statement is incorrect.
The new legislation (HB 589 VIVA / Election Reform) allows for the Chairs from each party to appoint 10 additional at-large poll observers who may attend any polling place in the county. The statute goes on to read: “Not more than two observers from the same political party shall be permitted in the voting enclosure at any time, except that in addition one of the at-large observers from each party may also be in the voting enclosure.”
This means that the maximum number of poll observers per party in a precinct would be three – and could only occur in 10 precincts for each party.
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