When Bill McAnulty, an elections board chairman in a mostly white North Carolina county, agreed in July to open a Sunday voting site where black church members could cast ballots after services, the reaction was swift: he was labeled a traitor by his fellow Republicans. “I became a villain, quite frankly,” recalled McAnulty at a state board of elections meeting in September that had been called to resolve disputes over early voting plans. “I got accused of being a traitor and everything else by the Republican Party,” McAnulty said. Following the blowback from Republicans, McAnulty later withdrew his support for the Sunday site.
In an interview with Reuters, he said he ultimately ruled against opening the Sunday voting site in Randolph County because he had “made a mistake in reading the wishes of the voters.” He declined to discuss the episode further.
This year’s highly charged presidential contest between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump has stoked accusations by both parties of political meddling in the scheduling of early voting hours in North Carolina, a coveted battleground state with a history of tight elections.
Full Article: Emails show how Republicans lobbied to limit voting hours in North Carolina | Reuters.