FINDING LIPSTICK TO PUT ON AN ELECTION-FRAUD PIG: It all made for riveting news from a state that has been in the spotlight too many times for all the wrong reasons in recent years, and the sad tale confirms some unflattering facts about North Carolina political life. It exposes questionable election practices that may have been going on for years, in at least some counties, and brings up possibilities that law enforcement and prosecutors may have been asleep at the wheel at best and turning a blind eye at worst. It suggests that some candidates want to win so badly they will cheat to do so. And make no mistake. Voter fraud in which a person tries to or does vote illegally is not in the same league as election fraud, where numerous ballots, in this case absentee ballots, are cast illegally. Some say a few ballots were cast illegally in the 9th Congressional District, some say hundreds were, and it could have been thousands.
https://www.wral.com/margaret-dickson-finding-lipstick-to-put-on-an-election-fraud-pig/18247420/

MCCONNELL TRIES TO BLAME DEMOCRATS FOR HARRIS ELECTION FRAUD: Republican leader Mitch McConnell recently used North Carolina’s election fraud case as an opportunity to shame Democrats for overlooking the existence of fraud in elections. McConnell has been criticizing a recent Democratic proposal to make voting easier (HR 1) for not addressing "sketchy" ballot harvesting like the kind found in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District. In a speech on the Senate floor last month, McConnell said he and other Republicans "for decades" have called for "commonsense" election safeguards — only to be "demonized by Democrats and their allies." McConnell’s speech gained attention after Vox reporter Aaron Rupar tweeted C-Span footage of his Feb. 26 speech.
https://www.wral.com/fact-check-mitch-mcconnell-says-gop-predicted-election-fraud-like-north-carolin...

COUNCIL OF STATE APPROVES RELOCATION OF DMV HEADQUARTERS: It’s not clear how many of the more than 400 headquarters employees will make the move and how many will choose to leave the agency instead. The DMV asked employees about it last week and of 255 who answered, only 48 said they would stay with the agency after the move. The head of the State Employees Association of North Carolina said the decision to move forward with the lease showed “disrespect and disregard” for the concerns of workers by both the Council of State and the state Department of Transportation. “They have turned the lives of some 400 employees completely upside down,” Broome said in an interview after the vote. “It is profoundly disappointing.” The DMV sought proposals for leased office space in Wake and surrounding counties. Of the dozen offers, the former headquarters of the Hardee’s restaurant chain in Rocky Mount was the only one outside of Wake County or Research Triangle Park and had the lowest annual rent.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article227090064.html

BILL FILED TO BLOCK STATE TREASURER'S REVAMP OF STATE HEALTH PLAN: A plan to save state employees money on their health insurance expenses is facing opposition at the General Assembly over fears it could harm hospitals all around North Carolina, particularly in rural areas. A bipartisan group of legislators are backing a bill that would stop changes to the State Health Plan that are set to start on Jan. 1, 2020. But if the bill becomes law it would put off the changes until at least 2022, if not permanently. Robert Broome, the executive director of the State Employees Association of North Carolina, said his group “strongly opposes this bill, which is a clear attempt to put corporate interests over working families and deny taxpayers a cost savings of more than $300 million each year.”
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article226925109.html

UNC BOG VIOLATED OPEN MEETINGS LAW DISCUSSING CONFEDERATE STATUE: The UNC system board chairman, Harry Smith, said the subcommittee didn’t have a quorum when it met. But he pledged that future meetings would be public. “Quite frankly I wasn’t even aware of the fact that we didn’t notice it,” Smith, a Greenville businessman, said in an interview. “I will tell you that it should be. We shouldn’t have a problem with that. I mean, it’s a very public conversation.” The UNC system’s top attorney, Tom Shanahan, declined to respond to questions about why the meeting was not announced. The committee’s chairman, Jim Holmes, said the meeting was informal, lasting about an hour or hour and a half. The five Board of Governors members on the special board committee talked about the issue with several UNC-Chapel Hill trustee members, he said. “We’re just trying to figure out where we’re going,” said Holmes, a Raleigh businessman.
https://www.newsobserver.com/article226908194.html