The State Board of Elections has its first meeting with its new Republican majority in the Dobbs Building in downtown Raleigh, N.C., on Wednesday, May 7, 2025. From left, Jeff Carmon, Stacy “Four” Eggers, chair Francis De Luca, Siobhan Millen and Bob Rucho.
The race between North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger and Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page — separated by just two votes — is likely headed for a recount.
It’s a recount that would be overseen by an elections board that recently came under Republican control. Thanks to a law passed by the legislature last year, the State Board of Elections is now under the purview of State Auditor Dave Boliek, who campaigned on Berger’s behalf.
Page has already raised concerns about Boliek’s role and asked him to recuse himself from the process, a request that has been echoed by political operatives on both sides of the aisle. His campaign also expressed frustration that the Rockingham County Board of Elections office was closed for several hours Wednesday, preventing voters from curing their ballots, while the Guilford County office remained open. Page has a significant lead in Rockingham County, while Guilford County voters favored Berger.
To be clear, there is no evidence to suggest that any malfeasance has occurred already or will occur in the future. But the fact that such concerns arise at all is the sad result of allowing partisan politics to tarnish a space where they should never, ever be a factor.
Berger and the Republicans who have repeatedly toyed with election administration say they have to change the rules to convince everyone that elections are fair. It’s about “election integrity,” they say. Instead, it’s created an environment where people are too quick to believe the opposite.
Ironically enough, Berger himself has expressed this same notion in the past. A few years ago, he introduced a bill that aimed to change the makeup of the State Board of Elections, as well as county election boards, to have an equal number of Democrats and Republicans. That bill was a terrible idea, because a 50-50 board would surely result in deadlock, with no clear mechanism for resolution, other than placing decisions in the hands of legislators themselves.
“We are living in a time of intense political polarization,” Berger said at the time. “Having a Board of Elections that is controlled by one party only sows distrust in our elections and we must find a new approach to quell concerns that cast doubt on the fairness of our elections.”
Ultimately, though, it seems that Berger and Republicans don’t mind if the Board of Elections is controlled by one party, so long as that party is theirs.
Adding to the drama is the fact that on Thursday, Bob Rucho, a member of the State Board of Elections, abruptly resigned. According to media reports, Rucho had donated to the campaigns of two county sheriffs, which is illegal because state law does not permit NCSBE members to make campaign contributions. Rucho is a former state lawmaker who was a close ally of Berger in the legislature, and concerns were also raised about recent social media posts in which he defended Berger and criticized Page. Making public statements supporting or opposing individual political candidates is also not permissible behavior for an elections board member under state law.
Rucho was right to resign. But it’s not just about him, and it’s not just about Boliek, either. Boliek’s “liaison to the local and state board of elections” is Dallas Woodhouse, former executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party. The NCSBE’s executive director is former general counsel for the Republican House speaker. The board’s chairman is former president of an influential conservative think tank funded by Republican kingmaker Art Pope. None of it screams impartiality, and therein lies the problem. It shouldn’t have to be this way.
The appearance of bias can be damaging enough, even if that bias does not actually exist. It undermines public confidence in our elections, thus discouraging civic participation. If Republicans fear that the Republican-controlled elections board can’t be objective in a Republican primary, how can voters trust their judgment in a general election?
Last year, when the legislature passed the law that placed elections oversight in the hands of Boliek, Berger said he believed voters are “interested in the elections process being properly administered without consideration of politics.”
“I don’t think anybody can objectively look at how the Board of Elections over the past, probably, seven-plus years has functioned in a manner that is free from suspicion of partisan influence,” he said then.
Even if that were true, Berger and his colleagues didn’t devise a solution. They simply created a bigger problem — one that we are seeing play out right now.
Deputy Opinion Editor Paige Masten is covering the 2026 elections for The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer.
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Paige Masten is the deputy opinion editor for The Charlotte Observer. She covers stories that impact people in Charlotte and across the state. A lifelong North Carolinian, she grew up in Raleigh and graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2021.
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