Overview
- The North Carolina State Board of Elections voted unanimously on Wednesday, June 24, 2026 to censure Wake County board members Greg Flynn and Gerry Cohen for voting to count three early ballots cast by people who died before Election Day.
- The board rejected a motion to remove the two men and instead allowed them to finish their terms, reversing neither their positions nor the January 2025 finding that those actions were not criminal.
- The dispute began after Wake officials flagged 45 early voters who died before Election Day in 2024, rejected 42 of those ballots and—after emotional testimony from relatives—accepted three, including an 18-year-old first-time voter.
- An Administrative Law Judge ruled earlier this year that the state board had violated its own rules and ordered a rehearing, which took place after the board’s partisan balance shifted to a Republican majority.
- State guidance (Numbered Memorandum 2022-05, revised Dec. 15, 2023) instructs counties to remove such ballots but no explicit North Carolina statute requires discarding ballots lawfully cast before a voter's death, leaving the issue unresolved and likely to prompt calls for legislative clarity.