“… Today, the Republican-controlled state Court of Appeals overturned that decision. The two-sentence ruling offered no explanation for why the judges were overruling the trial court; it also didn't name the judges who made the decision. And it came despite the judges hearing no oral arguments on the case.
The 15-judge court of appeals typically hears cases in panels of three judges. Because the court has 11 Republicans and four Democrats, its panels are almost always majority-Republican.
…
The state and county election boards all have five members. For years state law has given three of those five seats to the governor's political party. The other two seats go to the next-largest political party. But ever since Democrat Roy Cooper unseated Republican Gov. Pat McCrory in 2016, Republican lawmakers have been trying to change that law to make sure Republicans, not Democrats, have control over elections. They've been unsuccessful, at least until now, with numerous attempts either struck down in court as unconstitutional or rejected at the ballot box by voters.
Republican state Senate leader Phil Berger has presided over all of those past unconstitutional efforts to shift power over elections to his party. Berger praised Wednesday's ruling, which broke with those past legal precedents.
… The ruling could affect administration of the 2026 midterms and beyond. But it could also affect the outcome of a still-uncalled race from 2024. The elections board has been at the center of a politically contentious lawsuit over whether to throw out thousands of ballots in Republican Jefferson Griffin's attempt to unseat Democratic state Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs.
Griffin's fellow Republicans on the Court of Appeals also
overturned a trial court ruling in that case, in order to rule in his favor. Griffin also later
won a partial victory at the Republican-controlled state Supreme Court. But Riggs and the elections board have been
fighting that decision in federal court, and a GOP takeover of the elections board in the middle of those federal court fights could help Griffin if the new elections board begins siding with him.
Stein suggested that in addition to the lack of details explaining why the Court of Appeals was overturning past precedent on this issue, the fast timing of the ruling also indicated politics were at play rather than legal reasoning. …”