When is the meeting to ‘Shove our new Granville early voting plan down their throats?’ NC Auditor’s office asked

Early voting starts next week, and Granville County voters could be forgiven for feeling like the county’s early voting plan – which moves the most popular and convenient early voting site five miles outside of Oxford – was shoved down their throats. It turns out that’s exactly what happened, as recently revealed text messages between State Auditor Dave Boliek’s office and former Granville County Elections Board Chair Larue Ulshafer show. 

Recent requests for records from the nonpartisan watchdog group American Oversight include a group text thread between Ulshafer, Kelly Mann, a government affairs staffer in Boliek’s office, and Dallas Woodhouse, the former executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party who Boliek hired as his office’s liaison to county boards of elections. The text message on May 27, 2026 (a couple of weeks before the Granville Board of Elections was scheduled to meet) from Woodhouse to Ulshafer says: “Larue: Let Kelly Mann and I know … when your meeting is to shove our new Granville early voting plan down their throats,” Woodhouse wrote. “One or both of us will be there to support you and tell the Democrats where to go stick it.”

This might seem obvious, but our county and state elections boards are supposed to decide on voting and polling place decisions in a non-partisan manner. That’s the way it has worked in recent memory in North Carolina, and it’s the preference of 80% of likely voters polled recently. In 2024, the Republican-controlled N.C. General Assembly moved control of elections from Democratic Gov. Josh Stein to the Auditor’s Office, one of the few statewide offices the Republican Party won that year. The GOP-controlled N.C. Supreme Court ratified that decision this year.

Auditor Boliek was asked about Woodhouse’s text at an event with the media outlet The Assembly and he avoided the question, The Assembly reported.  

Records from Auditor Boliek’s own office show his elections liaison promising a Republican county elections chair they would ‘shove’ an early voting plan down his colleagues’ throats and ‘tell the Democrats where to go stick it.’ That is partisan pressure on decisions that shape people’s access to the ballot,” said Chioma Chukwu, Executive Director of American Oversight in a statement. “For workers with long shifts, seniors, people with disabilities, and Black voters and other voters of color, where and when they can vote can make all the difference.”

All throughout the summer, when the Granville County Board of Elections met to talk about their early voting plan, Republicans on the board swore up and down their plan was all about “geographic diversity,” “safety,” “fairness”. One by one, their rationalizations were proved to be just excuses, and now these text messages reveal that what they wanted the whole time was to “shove it down their throats” and “tell the Democrats where to stick it.”

If you’ve been following County Beacon, you might remember our reporting over the summer on a series of dramatic Board of Election meetings where:

• Then-Chair Ulshafer admitted that he put forward the plan to move popular voting sites out of downtown Oxford and close the site in South Granville because that’s what “the boss” wanted. He resigned from the board after that meeting.
• The Elections Board agreed that if they could get more funding from the County, they would open a fourth site in Stovall rather than close the South Branch Library site.
• The County Commission approved the additional funding.
• Despite previously agreeing that additional funding would solve their supposed “geographic diversity” problem, Republican Board members Doug Smith and Debby Butler refused the additional funding, voting to close both early voting sites popular with Black Voters and Democrats and open a new site in Stovall.
• The State Board of Elections approved a “compromise” plan with 4 Early Voting Sites: The Granville County Expo Center, The South Branch Library, Tar River Elementary and the Stovall Library. Notably, this plan still moved the popular downtown Oxford Public Works site five miles out of town, to the Granville County Expo Center. 

According to a different set of text messages obtained by the News and Observer (including the ones County Beacon reported back in July), Granville Board of Elections member Debby Butler almost gave in to the throngs of angry citizens who asked her to explain her decision to support closing the sites. She was kept in line by former Granville GOP chair Mike Magnanti, who was texting her instructions from the audience during the meeting.

Here’s the upshot: take a look at the data analysis conducted on what it means to move the popular Public Works site in downtown Oxford, a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood. They’ve made it harder to vote early, in a place where 80% of voters took that option in 2024.

We look forward to how Granville voters will respond.

Early voting starts Thursday, Oct. 15 and runs through Saturday, Oct. 31

Granville County Early Voting 

Franklin County Early Voting

If you have questions about voting or need assistance, call the non-partisan North Carolina Voter Hotline: 888-OUR-VOTE.

Several local organizations are offering rides to the polls this year. If you need a ride, contact: 

Non-partisan Political Mobilization Effort: 919-939-9026

Granville Democratic Party: 919-603-1695