North Carolina auditor's elections liaison pressured Columbus County's board to cut early-voting sites

On May 27, 2026, Dallas Woodhouse, then the elections liaison in Republican North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek's office, texted Columbus County Board of Elections Chair Jillian McPherson-Edge and one other person in a group chat: "As of now mark Columbus County tentatively for 3 sites...Whiteville, Chadbourn and Tabor City. With roughly 37,000 registered voters 3 sites is plenty. I agree 5 is overkill, but we can't go below 3." McPherson-Edge "liked" the message. The text was obtained through a public-records request by the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and first reported by WECT.

Two weeks later, on June 8, McPherson-Edge revised her own proposal -- which had called for a single early-voting site at the county elections office -- to three sites: Whiteville, Chadbourn, and Tabor City, the exact list Woodhouse had named. McPherson-Edge has said her decisions were her own, informed by the county elections director rather than by Woodhouse or the auditor's office, and that the text reflected only "a professional and constructive conversation." Curtis Hill, president of the Columbus County NAACP chapter, said the messages show partisan state interference in a local decision that should belong to the county.

A 2024 state law transferred the power to appoint county election board chairs and members from the governor to the state auditor, giving Boliek's office majority control of every county board. Under that law, most of a county board's day-to-day business -- including site selection -- was meant to remain independent of the auditor's office, with appointments and budget oversight the stated exceptions. Public records disclosed in the following months showed Woodhouse similarly weighing in on early-voting plans in more than a dozen other counties between March and June 2026. Woodhouse resigned July 13, 2026 amid the bipartisan backlash that followed.

Updates

2026-06-29 — Columbus County board deadlocked along party lines; decision sent to the state [3, 4]

The five-member board split 3-2 on party lines and failed to reach the unanimous vote North Carolina law requires for a non-unanimous early-voting plan to take effect: the three Republican members voted for four sites (dropping Fair Bluff), while the two Democratic members voted to keep all five. With no binding local decision, the matter went to the State Board of Elections, which a spokesperson said would likely rule in mid-August 2026.