Former NC Gov. Pat McCrory launches group aimed at boosting confidence in elections

Former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory remembers the doubts he had when the 2016 election results showed he had lost his reelection to Roy Cooper.

Cooper, a Democrat, won by just over 10,000 votes out of the more than 4.6 million cast that election cycle.

At the time, McCrory called for a recount and voiced “serious concerns about potential voter fraud across the state.”

McCrory told McClatchy, last week, that late election results had left him confused.

“I went through a week or two period where everyone was sending me information on what they thought happened,” McCrory said. “But the more I read over the information and the more I saw other information I had, I made a determination for myself that my opponent won the closest gubernatorial election in state history.”

Now, McCrory wants to help inform candidates and voters about the election process so that they can understand and trust in the results.

Right count

This week, McCrory is helping to launch the North Carolina chapter of RightCount, a nonprofit created to educate people on election integrity. The group has chapters in Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Georgia.

McCrory said in North Carolina the group will be made up of law enforcement and past and present elected officials who will work with him.

In its mission statement, RightCount says the organization is committed to “defending those sworn to uphold the rule of law by ensuring that the constitutional standards, laws and procedures for vote counting and certification are upheld in the state.”

As one of its principles, the group says it will applaud election officials for carrying out their ministerial duties in the face of opposition and offer support when being pressured away from their legal and constitutional duties.

The Brennan Center for Justice released a survey of election officials in May that found 38% of them reported being threatened and 7 out of 10 felt that threats had increased since 2020.

And a High Point University poll released in September showed that only 36% of voters polled had confidence the election would accurately reflect the way votes were cast. Another 40% said they had some confidence, 17% said they had no confidence and 7% said they weren’t sure.

“I want to be part of the process to help the American public regain their confidence in our election system, and I’m going to hopefully be part of doing so,” McCrory said. “I’m going to help educate the public on how the election system works and what changes have been made in North Carolina since the last election.”

Election changes

Those changes include using voter identification, paper ballots for backup and making clear that there’s no internet connection to the voting machines.

“Those are the three big changes that have occurred from the last presidential election and we want to get that word out so people have confidence that regardless of the results, that people will go, ’OK, this was done the right way,’” McCrory said.

For the first time, this election cycle, all North Carolina voters will be asked to show a photo ID before voting, though the state includes a lengthy list of exceptions for doing so and voters can fill out an ID exception form at the precinct when they go to vote.

All votes will be cast on paper, to provide a paper trail if problems do arise.

And voting machines, under state law, will not be allowed to connect to the internet to thwart outside interference.

McCrory said RightCount will work to make sure North Carolina voters understand these changes ahead of the election.

Election night

McCrory also wants people to understand what is happening as results of the vote become public.

One thing he said gets muddled every election night is that there isn’t one set of rules across the nation. Election laws are set by each state and because of that, results can flow in differently across the country.

Some states tabulate early votes first. Some do it last. And, McCrory says, those are a notoriously different set of voters and he feels like that is never clearly explained.

In North Carolina, early votes and absentee ballots are typically the first batch of results the Board of Elections releases on election night.

“Democrats tend to prefer both of those modes of voting more so than Republicans do,” said Chris Cooper, political science professor at Western Carolina University. “As a result, the very first votes that are going to drop are almost always better for the Democratic Party than whatever comes later.”

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are nearly tied in the polls for the presidency, and so this becomes an important point as people around the country watch to see what North Carolina voters do as a critical battleground state.

A candidate’s percentage of votes can change rapidly through the night as different precincts, counties or states come in depending on the political leaning of the people who live there.

McCrory says he doesn’t blame elected officials or voters when they become befuddled as the votes come in.

“It’s understandable why they’re confused about when and how votes come in, and who has voter ID, who doesn’t and how you register to vote,” McCrory said.

Explaining elections

McCrory said the process of explaining the election process starts now. He said his team doesn’t want to wait until the election is over to explain the process.

“We know we’re going to have a close election, so we’ve got to communicate to the public on how the system works,” McCrory said. “We can’t just depend upon the elected officials themselves, and not the political parties or the elections board. It’s just too much. And those communications may be difficult to get out or confusing or inaccurate. This is a group of people who are interested in making sure the system works and then we communicate that the system successfully works.”

Trusting the election

Since the 2020 election, voters have most often heard concerns about election integrity from Republicans, and often Trump and the people around him.

McCrory said he remains a Republican but it’s important to him that RightCount’s message reaches both parties.

“I’m a Republican,” McCrory said. “I’m a conservative, so I think a lot of people who will be working with us will be a cross section, including conservatives who will be studying the issues and making sure that the accurate information gets out there.”

Patrick Sebastian, McCrory’s nephew, who is senior adviser for North Carolina’s chapter of RightCount, said when election-integrity issues come up, a bipartisan group of Board of Election officials does investigate those concerns.

“It’s good for America when people know that their votes are going to be counted fairly, and only legal votes are going to be counted fairly, and that’s what this is about,” Sebastian said. “It’s about instilling confidence in our system so people, whether win or lose, can feel confident that their vote and their neighbor’s vote were counted equally.”

As for McCrory, he emphasized that he does trust the election process, despite having lost one of the closest gubernatorial elections in North Carolina history.

“I had private doubts during my recount, but once I did my homework I realized there was a winner, and it wasn’t me, and that’s going to be the case in every election,” McCrory said. “There’s always a winner.”