If you can believe it, we’re less than three months away from the 2026 midterm elections. With the electoral clock ticking, we thought now would be as good a time as any to talk about the importance of protecting voting rights.
If you’re a regular reader of this newsletter, you know that Patriotic Millionaires has three priorities: tax the rich, pay the people, and spread the power. When we talk about spreading the power in the course of our work, we typically focus on the need to reform the campaign finance system to reduce the influence of moneyed interests. But spreading the power is more involved than that. First and foremost, it involves protecting people’s sacred right to vote in elections and select their representatives for higher office. Voting is the true cornerstone and linchpin of our democratic republic. If people don’t have this right, pursuing the rest of our mission is pointless.
The right to vote in America has come a long way. Originally, only white, propertied men could vote, but amendments to the Constitution were passed over the years which extended suffrage to Black people, women, and young people. Until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Black Americans in Southern states faced particularly large obstacles in exercising their right to vote on account of things like poll taxes and literacy tests.
Unfortunately, voter suppression is still a reality in America, as voting protections continue to suffer legal blows at the state and federal level. Tactics to prevent people from voting or registering to vote in 2026 look different than those we read about in our history books; they now include things like discriminatory voter ID laws, Election Day barriers, reduced polling places (particularly in poor and minority communities) and excessively long lines, voter roll purges, and limits to mail-in voting and early voting.
These tactics are intentional. You see, if everyone has the right to vote—as promised by the Constitution—and elected officials cannot take it away, their only remaining option if they want to subvert our democracy and sway elections in their favor is to take away access to voting. Everyone may have the right to vote, but not everyone has equal access to vote, and that is how democracy gets undermined. Every single elected official across the country—from local officials to the president—should prioritize using our tax dollars to preserve our right to vote.
We’ve spent the past four years running a grassroots educational campaign, our Great Economy Project, in North Carolina. Based on how we’ve seen officials develop the state’s early voting plans over the last few months, it’s safe to say North Carolina is ground zero for modern-day voter suppression in America. For this week’s Closer Look, we wanted to share these developments with you. We’ll spotlight the push for early voting site closures in Columbus County; the removal of early voting sites on college campuses; the loss of Sunday voting in many places; and the passage (and subsequent veto, hurray!) of an anti-voter bill. Let’s get started!
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Short on time? Here’s what you need to know
- “Spreading the power” is one of Patriotic Millionaires’ three priorities. This involves many things, but first and foremost, it involves protecting people’s sacred right to vote in elections. We should all care about strengthening our democracy and getting as many Americans as possible involved in the political process, and that begins with ensuring everyone can freely and easily exercise their right to vote.
- Voting rights have come a long way over the course of American history, but unfortunately voter suppression is still a reality. The attempts to stifle early voting in North Carolina provide a good case study for this, especially after authority over the State Board of Elections was transferred from the governor to the state auditor.
- One North Carolina county, Columbus County, had five early voting sites in the 2022 midterms, but there was a push to have just one site this election cycle. According to the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, “Every election since at least 2008 in Columbus County has included four or more early voting sites.” Having five sites was described by an official from the auditor’s office as “overkill” and a “waste of taxpayer money.” After tremendous pushback from residents, the matter is now being decided by the State Board of Elections.
- Cuts to early voting sites have been particularly egregious at college campuses in North Carolina, including Western Carolina University, NC A&T State University, and NC State University. Officials have also cut Sunday early voting hours in various counties.
- Some good news is that North Carolina Governor Josh Stein recently vetoed an anti-voter bill which is unlikely to be overridden by the state legislature.
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Early voting in Columbus County
After the 2024 elections, in the lame-duck period before the new state government in North Carolina was sworn in, the then-GOP state legislature voted to strip the governorship of its authority over the State Board of Elections and transferred that power to the state auditor. North Carolina is the only state in the country where its auditor, Dave Boliek, has this kind of power as opposed to the governor, Josh Stein.
Outside of appointing members to the State Board of Elections and appointing chairs of county election boards, Boliek and his office are supposed to let election boards in the state operate independently. But over the last few months, they have done anything but, particularly as it relates to counties’ early voting plans.
Nowhere is this clearer than in Columbus County, where our Great Economy Project is based. Dave Boliek appointed Jillian McPherson-Edge as the Columbus County Board of Elections Chair. In early May, McPherson-Edge pushed to have only one early voting site in the whole county. Reports revealed that McPherson-Edge exchanged texts on May 27 with Dallas Woodhouse, the liaison between the auditor’s office and election board members and a former chairman of the North Carolina Republican party. In these texts, Woodhouse said, “As of now mark Columbus County tentatively for 3 sites…Whiteville, Chadbourn and Tabor City. With roughly 37,000 registered voters 3 sites is plenty. I agree 5 is overkill…” (For context, in the 2022 midterms, Columbus County had five early voting sites.) Woodhouse eventually resigned over these and other revelations, but told a local reporter last week that he stood by his words, calling five early voting sites in Columbus County “a waste of valuable taxpayer money.”
Not long after her text exchange with Woodhouse, McPherson-Edge upped her proposal from one early voting site to three. There was tremendous pushback from residents though, and long story short, the issue is now in the hands of the State Board of Elections, which will meet August 20, 2026 to make its final decision on the number of early voting precincts that will be available in several counties across the state.
We’ll make our two cents on this fiasco short and sweet: “overkill” should not be in the same sentence as “voting.”Research has shown that the availability of early voting increases voter turnout. Seventy percent of voters in Columbus County voted early in the 2024 election. If officials care about making voting as accessible as possible for as many people as possible, then it should be a no-brainer to expand, not shrink, early voting.
At Patriotic Millionaires, we don’t usually take positions on how governments decide to spend revenues, but if there’s one thing we are comfortable with our tax dollars being used on, it’s commonsense ways to help Americans exercise their right to vote.
College Campuses
Cuts to early voting sites have been particularly egregious at college campuses in North Carolina. Western Carolina University, NC A&T State University, and NC State University have all been affected. Officials in Guilford and Jackson counties blocked NC A&T and Western Carolina University, respectively, from serving as early voting sites in the primary elections, and may also be similarly blocked in the general elections depending on what the State Board of Elections decides. And remember Auditor Dave Boliek? His office pressured Jackson County Board of Elections members to block the early voting site at Western Carolina University, even going so far as to threaten to oust one member from the Board if he supported it.
As for NC State University, Wake County Board of Elections officials moved its early voting site from the student union at the center of campus to the university’s Business Services Center a mile away on the university’s outskirts. So much for accessibility!
Sunday Voting
North Carolina Board of Elections officials have also been hard at work shedding Sunday early voting hours. Roughly a dozen counties so far that had Sunday hours in 2022 officially won’t have them in the midterms, yet there may be more after the North Carolina Board of Elections makes final decisions on early voting plans for 20 counties. Part of the split between Columbus County Board of Elections members came down to the fact one plan would limit Sunday voting.
And surprise, surprise—dropping Sunday early voting hours was something that Auditor Boliek’s office tried to push among county election boards.
Even if, as data from one NC county indicated, turnout is relatively lower on Sundays, it really shouldn’t matter. Increased voting access is a matter of principle. And this is especially the case with regard to weekend voting as it benefits working people with numerous demands on their time during the week.
Anti-voter bill
On Monday, Democratic Governor Josh Stein vetoed a bill that would have further suppressed the vote in North Carolina. Among other things, the legislation would have reduced early voting periods, required the state auditor to conduct post-election audits, and purged voter rolls using faulty federal databases.
The state legislature could vote to override Stein’s veto, but this is unlikely. Republicans who voted to pass the bill have enough votes to do so in the Senate, but not the House.
Conclusion
Protecting the right to vote and making voting as accessible as possible should not be a partisan issue. We should all care about strengthening our democracy and getting as many Americans as possible involved in the political process, and that begins with ensuring everyone can freely and easily exercise their right to vote.
Candidates of all political stripes should try to win elections by courting voters on the campaign trail by touting their legislative record and/or future policy ideas, not by trying to prevent people from voting.
Our ancestors did the hard work in securing everyone the right to vote, but the job’s not done yet. It’s now up to us to strengthen and shore up voting protections so they are as strong and robust as they can possibly be. And you can rest assured that the Patriotic Millionaires are committed to doing this as part of our mission to spread the power.
