Loading issue research
Certification of election results should be a fixed, non-discretionary duty, and control over who appoints election administrators shouldn't shift the moment a different party wins a different office.
Verification Status
AI-researched, unverifiedLast Reviewed
Jul 12, 2026
Cited Sources
12
What is failing, what we would change, and the conclusion we are willing to defend.
The people who count and certify votes should not be chosen, or removable, by whichever party most recently won a different office. That's the whole claim. It says nothing about whether a state's chief election official should be elected or appointed; it says the machinery that certifies who won an election shouldn't be handed to a new operator the moment a different election changes who gets to pick the operator.
North Carolina ran exactly that maneuver. Senate Bill 382, enacted by a party-line veto override in December 2024 (30-19 in the Senate, 72-46 in the House), moved appointment power over the State Board of Elections and every county board chair from the governor to the state auditor, with the administrative transfer to the auditor's office effective July 1, 2025, roughly six months into the same term in which a Democratic governor and a Republican auditor were both sworn in. A trial court called the transfer unconstitutional in April 2025, before the transfer had even taken effect. An appeals court let it take effect anyway while the underlying question is still on appeal in mid-2026, so the auditor has controlled election-board appointments for well over a year with the constitutional question still unresolved.
Georgia tried a related maneuver from the certification side. In 2024, its State Election Board added a rule requiring county officials to conduct a "reasonable inquiry" before certifying results, the same kind of discretion two Cochise County, Arizona supervisors invoked in 2022 to delay certifying a county's votes past the deadline before a court ordered them to sign. Georgia's Supreme Court, eight of whose nine justices were appointed by a Republican governor, struck the rule down in June 2025 as exceeding the board's statutory authority. The court with the least partisan incentive to rule against a Republican-majority board did it anyway.
Codify certification everywhere as a strictly ministerial duty, enforceable by an expedited mandamus remedy available within days, closing the discretion gap Georgia's board tried to open and Cochise County exploited.
Require any law reassigning appointment or removal authority over state or local election administrators to take effect only at the start of the next regular election cycle, not immediately, unless passed by a two-thirds majority in each chamber that includes votes from more than one party, or, in Nebraska's unicameral, officially nonpartisan legislature, a two-thirds majority of all members, since there is no second chamber and no formal party affiliation to test against.
Favor a fixed, party-balanced, multi-member structure for state election oversight bodies, on Wisconsin's model, over concentrating that authority in one partisan elected officer.
Protect election officials who perform their ministerial duties on schedule from retaliatory removal, while preserving accountability for proven fraud or dereliction.
Require independent legal and security review, published before adoption, for any new rule that adds discretion to a certification process.
Certification of election results should be a fixed, non-discretionary duty, and control over who appoints election administrators shouldn't shift the moment a different party wins a different office.
Turn frustration into useful pressure.
If this position misses evidence or a lived consequence, challenge it. If it holds up, help test it locally and connect it to the issues around it.