North Carolina auditor's elections liaison pressured Cabarrus County's board to delay its early-voting vote for a GOP-leaning site

On April 27, 2026, the Cabarrus County, North Carolina, Board of Elections voted 4-1 to table its fall early-voting plan for 30 days after Dallas Woodhouse, then the elections liaison in Republican State Auditor Dave Boliek's office, pressed board chair Jay White to delay the vote so the auditor's office could pursue an additional early-voting site in Midland, a more Republican-leaning, mostly white town of about 5,200 people. White told the board that Boliek's office wanted a Midland site, according to board secretary Martin Ericson, and the county elections director began investigating available locations with county staff after the vote was tabled.

Woodhouse also pressed the delay through the state Republican Party. In an April 23, 2026 text to Fraley, the party's general counsel, Woodhouse wrote that he "urge[d] in the strongest possible terms" that the Cabarrus board delay its vote; Fraley replied, "I am on it!" Asked in an interview why he sought help from the party's lawyer, Woodhouse said, "We ask all kinds of people, 'Do you know of a place?'" The board ultimately kept its original four early-voting sites when it acted; none is in Midland.

The Cabarrus pressure was part of a broader pattern: public records obtained by the nonprofit American Oversight, and reported the same day, showed Woodhouse and other Boliek staff directing early-voting site and hour decisions across more than a dozen North Carolina counties. A 2024 law had stripped elections-appointment power from the state's incoming Democratic governor and vested it in Boliek, an elected Republican, letting his office appoint every county board chair. Boliek's office did not respond to a reporter's question about its role in the Cabarrus decision.

Updates

2026-07-13 — Woodhouse resigned from the auditor's office [4]

Dallas Woodhouse resigned from the North Carolina Auditor's office effective July 13, 2026, after his early-voting-site recommendations to multiple county election boards -- including Cabarrus County -- became public. In his resignation letter, Woodhouse wrote, "I am certain that my advice was not always correct. Looking back, there are recommendations I might make differently today."