Two Democrats to Decide Ballot Language for Republican Constitutional Amendments?

RALEIGH – That appears to be the case according to a law that dictates the amendment captions explaining the ballot referenda are to be written and provided by the Constitutional Amendments Publication Commission, made up of two Democrats and one Republican.

“Democrats have argued that ballot questions for this year’s constitutional amendments might be misleading, but two of the state’s most prominent Democrats will have a key role in explaining the amendments to voters.

A little-known provision in a 2016 law puts the Constitutional Amendments Publication Commission in charge of writing an “explanation” of the amendment that will “include a short caption reflecting the contents … to be used on the ballot and the printed summary.” It also says the ballot items “shall be designated by only the short caption provided by the Constitutional Amendments Publication Commission.”

The commission consists of the secretary of state (Democrat Elaine Marshall), the attorney general (Democrat Josh Stein), and the legislative services officer (Republican Paul Coble), who are required to meet and come up with the explanations at least 75 days before the election.”

So two of the most liberal state officials will be crafting caption language to include on the ballot referencing the amendments they have publicly derided.

AG Josh Stein, a protege’ of Gov. Roy Cooper, can’t stop himself from jumping on the bandwagons of the Left, and uses his position to drop or join lawsuits to advance political narratives.

He arguably violated ethics rules by abandoning the State of North Carolina in the General Assembly’s voter ID case, unilaterally killing the State’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

And, Sec. of State Elaine Marshall? She only presides over an office that crafted a policy of conferring state powers upon illegal aliens – knowingly certifying illegal aliens as notaries public – which would have led to her impeachment if the legislative leadership had not gotten weak knees.

One of the powers of a Notary Public is that of certifying absentee ballots.

Do you think these two Democrats are going to be objective when crafting caption explanations for the Voter ID amendment? It’s hard to imagine they won’t use as many subtly worded tricks a possible to taint the appearance of such an amendment, as they have more explicitly in the past.

“The Democratic majority composition of the Constitutional Amendments Publication Commission has led some to question if the explanations might lead voters to vote no. Many Democratic lawmakers voted against some of the amendments, and they criticized vague wording in several of them — including an amendment that would limit the governor’s appointment powers but doesn’t include ballot language spelling that out.[…]

A spokeswoman for Stein says the attorney general “intends to fulfill his statutory obligation and accurately define each of these amendments on next year’s ballots.””

Accurate in the eyes of whom? To Stein? The Democratic AG’s view of the accurate description of Voter ID has previously been that it’s racist and unnecessary.

We already know how uncommitted he is to statutory obligations based on his relatively short, but agenda driven actions at the N.C. DOJ.

Republican leaders are not so worried, however. The ‘For or Againt’ language of the amendments themselves will also be included on the ballot, and Republicans have faith that voters are smart enough to see through any tricks in the caption.

“[N.C. House Rules Chairman David Lewis (R-Harnett)] said he doesn’t think the commission’s involvement will hurt the amendments. “I think the people are smarter than the Democratic activists, so I’m not the least bit worried about it,” he said.

“All of the amendments that we’ve offered are ones that we feel have high degrees of public support. I frankly have confidence that whatever’s put on the posters will just be what it is.””

Let’s hope so.