North Carolina’s new bipartisan elections board won’t be named for a week, but it’s already sparked more partisan sniping in the midst of what could be the state’s biggest election scandal in years. The attacks began after former board Chairman Josh Malcolm, a Democrat who sparked the investigation into election fraud in the 9th Congressional District, told the Observer that he will not serve on a new board. Republican Sen. Dan Bishop of Charlotte and GOP Rep. David Lewis of Harnett County, who chair election committees, called Malcolm’s decision, coupled with the December resignation of then-Chairman Andy Penry, “the inevitable result of (Gov. Roy) Cooper’s crusade to make the Board an arm of his political machine.”
Meanwhile, the N.C. Democratic Party nominated four people for three seats on the new five-member board, which Cooper is expected to name on Jan. 31. It also claimed that three of the four Republicans recommended by state GOP are ineligible. Republicans will have two seats on the new board.
… Democrats say De Luca and Newton are ineligible under a statute that says any officer of a group that “has engaged in electioneering” in the previous 48 months cannot serve on the state board. De Luca was president of the Civitas Institute and associated with Civitas Action, a nonprofit that ranks legislators based on their conservative voting record. Newton launched a super PAC last year to push passage of the voter ID amendment. And Woodhouse was a candidate for Raleigh City Council in 2015.
Full Article: Josh Malcolm, who started the 9th District probe, won’t serve | Charlotte Observer.