News from the South - North Carolina News Feed

Elections in NC suffer from lack of money and little voter education

Published

5 months ago

February 10, 2025

Staff Editor

carolinapublicpress.org – Sarah Michels – 2025-02-10 08:00:00

Upon further review: Commission finds that NC elections suffer from deficits and distrust

by Sarah Michels, Carolina Public Press
February 10, 2025

James Hardaway spent Election Night counting ballots in Wake County. With another poll worker standing behind him as a second pair of eyes, Hardaway physically checked each paper ballot, ensuring that the numbers matched those the precinct’s tabulators had been tracking all day and night. In other elections across North Carolina, similar scenes were playing out.

Afterwards, the Wake County precinct workers knew “beyond a shadow of a doubt” that the numbers aligned, Hardaway said.

But not everyone shared that knowledge.

“That’s not good enough for someone who’s reading something on Facebook or Twitter that there are 500,000 voted ballots that are only voting for one candidate,” Hardaway said. “If you look at the raw numbers, that’s not true. But when that post gets a million views, it gets legs.”

Hardaway, an Army veteran, is one of 60 members of the Commission on the Future of North Carolina Elections, a first of its kind, comprehensive review of the state’s election systems and processes.

Last week, the commission met at Catawba College to discuss its findings and recommendations after a multi-year effort. While the commission’s 11 committees covered a wide range of election topics, they arrived at two major conclusions.

First, North Carolina’s elections need more funding to operate effectively.

Second: North Carolinians do not know or understand the state’s electoral processes enough, which leads to confusion, distrust and apathy.

‘Nobody’s done this’

The Commission on the Future of North Carolina Elections launched in October 2023 with a mission: increase confidence and trust in the state’s electoral process through comprehensive review. Members came from across the state and varied in age, race, gender and political affiliation.

The commission originated from an organization called the North Carolina Network for Fair, Safe and Secure Elections and counts Catawba College as a partner in the effort.

It’s led by a bipartisan pair: former Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts, a Democrat, and Bob Orr, a former state Supreme Court justice who had been a longtime Republican.

Since its inception, the commission’s 11 committees have held over 80 meetings to discuss and debate various aspects of the state’s electoral process.

The commission’s bipartisan committees looked into, among other things, North Carolina’s ballot security, election infrastructure and administration, campaign finance and voter access.

“Nobody’s done this,” Orr said. “As critical as elections are to democracy, to our state, I’m not aware of any governmental units or academic entities that have done the kind of comprehensive work that this group has.”

Voters lack trust in the elections process

For the most part, North Carolinians’ trust in elections depends on whether their preferred party wins. That’s according to a pair of surveys conducted in August 2024 and January 2025 by YouGov, a British market research company.

Over 1,000 North Carolinians were asked how confident they were in the security and integrity of North Carolina voting before — and after — the 2024 election.

In August, 71% said they believed in the voting process with Democrats expressing significantly higher confidence than Republicans — 83% to 63%.

However, after President Donald Trump won reelection, those numbers changed for members of both parties. Overall confidence rose to 80%. But Republicans’ confidence in election integrity spiked to 86% while that number for Democrats dropped slightly to 81%.

There was a starker partisan divide when respondents were asked if they thought that votes in their county would be accurately counted.

Before the election, 89% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans said they thought that the votes would be correctly tallied. But afterwards, only 75% of Democrats felt that way. The confidence of Republicans, however, skyrocketed to 86%.

Hardaway said his committee found that the doubts of voters stems from a lack of understanding. They don’t know how election technology works. They don’t trust that the ballot’s path from printing to counting is secure each step of the way. And they want more proof that voter rolls are accurate and regularly maintained.

While a great deal of information on these processes already exists publicly, in places like the State Board of Elections’ website, there’s a need to more aggressively advertise and spread the knowledge among the electorate, the committee found.

“More communication and more information is ultimately going to build confidence in the process,” said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University.

The civics education we’re missing

While there are legislative efforts to bolster civic education — including a bill introduced this session requiring UNC System institutions to require at least three credit hours in American history or government to graduate — they often focus on specific historical documents, such as the Gettysburg Address or Federalist Papers.

But there’s not much that teaches young people on how localities prepare and run elections.

Martha Kropf, a UNC-Charlotte political science professor, told the commission she once asked her college class a series of basic questions to gauge their election knowledge. Among them: Can a felon vote?

The correct answer is yes — once they’ve served their sentence, completed probation and paid any restitution.

But only 18% of her students got it right. Some were even insistent that Kropf was wrong.

The commission discussed trying to get more basic election knowledge into this session’s bill.

Civic education requires civic engagement

People who start voting at 18 tend to make civic involvement a habit throughout their life, Catawba College political science professor Michael Bitzer said.

But the opposite is also true.

“If you get later into your life and haven’t participated or haven’t cast ballots, it’s perceivably harder to get people engaged and into a mindset of being civically engaged,” Bitzer explained.

The committee devoted to civic education found that most county election offices who responded to their survey did not have someone on staff whose job description included voter education.

Some advocated for paying non-voters, particularly those who are younger or in marginalized communities, to participate in research on what civic engagement barriers they face. Many brought up social media as a necessary tool to reach less civically-engaged North Carolinians.

Whatever the solution may be, Bitzer said it will have to start small.

“Everything in American history teaches us that oftentimes things that are fundamentally shifting … begin at the local level,” he said.

Elections and their cost

The commission noted that one area in dire need of investment is campaign finance.

Each election cycle, over 3,317 political entities are legally required to file campaign finance reports. Most have to file more than one during each cycle.

Two attorneys, six to seven auditors and one to two investigators are responsible for policing all of those reports with software that’s over 20 years old.

A commission committee found that hiring at least two more auditors, in addition to investing in modern-day software, would better hold candidates and campaign finance organizations more accountable in a timely manner.

Understaffing and outdated technology underscore the challenges. Last December, a three-plus year investigation into campaign finance violations committed during Mark Robinson’s run for lieutenant governor finally concluded.

Poll position

Funding is also needed to address critical personnel challenges in several areas of election administration, the commission found.

In the past five years, election directors in 61 of North Carolina’s 100 counties have left their jobs. A Carolina Public Press investigation found that safety concerns, increasing complexity of the job as voter policies constantly change and low pay were behind the exodus.

Minimum pay for election directors was set at $12 an hour in 1999 and hasn’t increased since.

Their responsibilities have increased exponentially since then. And now, with the passage of Senate Bill 382, they will face tighter deadlines to count provisional and absentee ballots after elections.

In addition to election directors, the supply of poll workers is suffering from a lack of funding. In 2022, 48% of North Carolina jurisdictions reported difficulty recruiting workers.

To combat that, election administrators will have to get more creative, said Leslie Garvin, executive director of an organization called North Carolina Campus Engagement.

“Has anybody seen a commercial to recruit you as a poll worker or an ad on social media or something?” she asked. “We’ve got so much access to folks now, and we need to use that.”

Where do elections go from here?

While last Tuesday was the unofficial “graduation” of the Commission on the Future of North Carolina Elections, the work is far from over.

By its bipartisan nature, the commission did not reach a consensus on every issue and recommended some things for further study.

Within the next month or so, the group will present its findings and recommendations to the legislature.

In October 2023, the commission set out to answer one question, Bitzer recalled: “Can we, with confidence, say to our fellow citizens in this state that North Carolina’s election system is fair, safe and secure? Is it a good system?

“I think we can take away the answer is yes.”

This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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News from the South - North Carolina News Feed

PETA sues American Kennel Club over standards for French bulldogs, other breeds

Published

13 hours ago

July 10, 2025

Staff Editor

www.youtube.com – ABC11 – 2025-07-10 12:44:35

SUMMARY: PETA is suing the American Kennel Club (AKC) over breeding standards for popular dog breeds like French bulldogs, pugs, and dachshunds. PETA argues these standards promote unhealthy traits causing lifelong suffering, such as bulldogs’ large skulls and shortened faces that impede breathing. The lawsuit cites UK research showing French bulldogs have poorer health, and notes the Netherlands banned breeding short-nosed dogs. Dachshunds’ long backs and short legs also lead to painful conditions. The AKC rejects PETA’s claims, stating it is committed to dogs’ health and well-being. This lawsuit continues a long-standing conflict between PETA and the AKC.

The animal rights group PETA sued Tuesday to try to force the American Kennel Club to abandon the standards it backs for hyper-popular French bulldogs and some other breeds, contending that the influential club is promoting unhealthy physical features.

More: https://abc11.com/post/peta-sues-american-kennel-club-breeding-standards-french-bulldogs-other-breeds/17038437/
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News from the South - North Carolina News Feed

Cellphone use in schools to be regulated under new NC law

Published

19 hours ago

July 10, 2025

Staff Editor

carolinapublicpress.org – Kate Denning – 2025-07-10 07:02:00

by Kate Denning, Carolina Public Press
July 10, 2025

Public school regulation of cellphone use is now law in North Carolina after Gov. Josh Stein signed House Bill 959 last week.

The new law prompts public schools to develop a wireless device policy that will limit students’ access to their cellphones and other wireless electronic devices throughout the school day. It will require the Department of Public Instruction to submit a yearly compliance report to legislators.

This completes the legislature’s mission to effectively ban cellphones in schools. This particular legislation was once a social media literacy bill aiming to “protect students in a digital age,” but previous failed attempts at cellphone regulation this session forced lawmakers to adapt.

The signed bill calls on schools to require the regulation of students’ use of wireless communication devices during instructional time, as well as education on the dangers of social media, as was intended in the original legislation sponsored by state Rep. Hugh Blackwell, R-Burke.

Wireless communication devices are defined in the bill as “any portable wireless device that has the capability to provide voice, messaging, or other data communication between two or more parties,” and includes cellphones, tablets, laptops, gaming devices, two-way radios and pagers.

While the bill does not establish a policy itself, it requires public schools to develop their own and specifies that it shall “prohibit students from using, displaying, or having a wireless communication device turned on during instructional time.”

It allows the schools to determine the consequences for violating the cellphone policy, including confiscation and further disciplinary measures as permitted by the school’s code of conduct.

President of the North Carolina Association of Educators Tamika Walker Kelly told Carolina Public Press educators are overwhelmingly concerned about the impact of cellphones and social media on the learning environment. Students are technology consumers, and that doesn’t just stop because they are at school, she said.

“It does cause disruptions that are unrelated to the learning of our students, but more so peer-to-peer relationships in the classroom that spill over because of something that happened on social media,” Kelly said.

“Educators do welcome the level of protecting the learning environment, not only for them as the facilitators of teaching in that space, but also especially for the students, so that they have a chance to engage with one another more authentically through person-to-person relationships, but also that they are able to have that focus on the academics.”

While each school will determine its own policy, the legislation will help maintain consistency in enforcement and potential consequences, Kelly said. It also removes a burden from teachers, who have tended to be responsible for setting and enforcing device policies on a classroom-by-classroom basis.

“This actually takes one more task out of the realm of the educator, gives it to the school district to not only train and equip their school leaders, principals, assistant principals across the board, but also school district staff on how to encourage that enforcement because it allows the educator in the room to teach and not have to worry about policing cellphones in the classroom,” Kelly said.

The bill leaves room for exceptions to the cellphone law, including if a device is needed in accordance with a student’s individualized education plan or to manage a student’s health care and for educational purposes or in the event of an emergency if authorized by the teacher.

Some lawmakers raised concerns about the bill’s restrictions. Prior to the Senate’s vote, state Sen. Terence Everitt, D-Wake, said while he was generally on board with the bill, requiring students turn their phones off gave him pause.

“We’ve spent a lot of time in the last 15 years making sure that we promote the proliferation of handguns and firearms,” Everitt said.

“Now we’re waiting on a veto override so we can get guns in the hands of 18 year olds with concealed carry without a permit. We’re making this state more and more dangerous, and more and more dangerous for our kids at school, and what I don’t want is for some child — we’ve all heard the 911 calls, those last moments when they’re calling for help or wanting a kind word from their parents or some sort of comfort — I don’t want their last moments to be spent waiting for their phone to turn on.”

For that reason, it will be important for districts to engage families when crafting its cellphone policy and create it with these safety concerns in mind, Kelly said.

“Parents and caregivers do really have concerns, and one of the reasons why they give their children cellphones is because they have great concerns around school safety,” she said.

“It’s really important to establish guidelines and be overly communicative with parents around their safety concerns so that they understand why we want to have cellphone free learning environments. But it doesn’t mean that students won’t have access to ways to communicate in case there is a school safety emergency on campus.”

Kelly noted that many schools and classrooms have systems like cellphone cubbies or lockers that allow students’ phones to be nearby, but not physically on their persons during instruction time, which could alleviate some parents’ concerns.

State Rep. Neal Jackson, R-Moore, said this very system at Union Pine High School is what gave him inspiration for House Bill 87, one of the first attempts at cellphone regulation earlier this year.

In addition to cellphone regulation, the bill maintained its initial goal of providing social media education.

All districts will be required to include instruction on social media and effects on health at least once during elementary school, once during middle school and twice during high school beginning at the start of the 2026-2027 school year.

Legislators view the instruction as related to cellphone use, as these are a key means by which students access social media.

According to the new law, the instruction must include education on the negative effects of social media on:

mental health such as addiction
the distribution of misinformation on social media, methods of manipulating behavior using social media
the permanency of information shared online, how to maintain personal security
how to identify cyberbullying
predatory behavior and human trafficking on the internet
how to report suspicious behavior encountered on the internet
personal and interpersonal skills or character education that enhances individual level protective factors and mitigates or reduces risk-taking or harmful behavior

Bipartisanship

The cellphone and social media bill passed unanimously in the House and with just one negative vote in the Senate. Both chambers have strong Republican majorities.

The governor, a Democrat, praised the bill, highlighting its bipartisanship and alignment with a report issued by the Advisory Council on Student Safety and Well-being, a council Stein organized earlier this year with the intention of focusing on student safety and cellphones in classrooms.

“When teachers don’t have to compete with cellphones for student attention, real learning happens,” Stein said in a press release.

“This bipartisan bill gives students a distraction-free learning environment so they can focus on their education, and it provides a seven-hour mental break from the unrelenting pressures of phones and social media.

“Earlier this month, my Advisory Council on Student Safety and Well-being released its first report recommending this step and outlining best practices for creating cellphone-free classrooms.

“It will serve as a resource for our school systems as they implement these common-sense policies. I appreciate the General Assembly’s work here. Let’s keep working together to set up North Carolina students for success.”

This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Cellphone use in schools to be regulated under new NC law appeared first on carolinapublicpress.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

The article presents the cellphone regulation law in North Carolina in a mostly factual and balanced tone, highlighting bipartisan support and quoting lawmakers from both parties. However, the inclusion of concerns raised by a Democratic senator linking cellphone restrictions with broader gun policy issues, as well as the positive framing of social media education and student mental health, reflects a subtle emphasis on progressive social concerns like student wellbeing and safety. The article’s respectful portrayal of educator and parental perspectives alongside bipartisan cooperation suggests a center-left leaning, supportive of regulatory measures aimed at improving educational environments without strong ideological rhetoric.

News from the South - North Carolina News Feed

North Carolina is hit by yet another climate wake-up call

Published

22 hours ago

July 10, 2025

Staff Editor

ncnewsline.com – Rob Schofield – 2025-07-10 04:01:00

SUMMARY: Chantal, a tropical depression, unleashed up to 10 inches of rain in North Carolina on July 8, 2025, causing severe flooding and significant damage to roads like Camp Easter Rd. and N.C. 2 in Southern Pines. Scientists warn that climate change intensifies such storms by increasing air moisture, leading to more frequent and severe downpours. Aging infrastructure and inadequate warning systems worsen the impact. Despite this, Republican leaders in Washington and Raleigh oppose renewable energy initiatives, promoting fossil fuel use instead. Urgent public demand is needed to reverse these harmful policies and address the climate crisis.

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The post North Carolina is hit by yet another climate wake-up call appeared first on ncnewsline.com