North Carolina auditor's elections liaison pressured a Jackson County board chair to block a campus early-voting site

On the morning of June 2, 2026, before the Jackson County, North Carolina, Board of Elections met to decide whether to move an early-voting site off Western Carolina University's campus, Dallas Woodhouse -- the county-board liaison in Republican State Auditor Dave Boliek's office and a former executive director of the state GOP -- sent board chair Bill Thompson a text message at 9:48 a.m. reading, "Don't let them have a vote." Thompson could not stop the meeting; the board convened later that morning and voted to keep the campus early-voting site, with a Republican member joining Democrats.

Woodhouse's message reflected pressure from Boliek's office over local early-voting decisions. A 2024 law passed by Republican legislators had stripped newly elected Democratic Governor Josh Stein of authority over the State Board of Elections and county board chairs and vested it in Boliek, an elected Republican. Republicans had sought to relocate the Western Carolina University early-voting site, one of the campus locations that tend to make voting more convenient for students.

Updates

2026-07-02 -- NC Local published the text messages revealing the June 2 pressure [1]

NC Local reported, based on a public-records request, that Woodhouse had texted Thompson "Don't let them have a vote" on the morning of the June 2 board meeting, making the auditor's office's attempt to influence the Jackson County early-voting decision public for the first time.

2026-07-08 -- Woodhouse reassigned from the elections-liaison role [2]

Following the reports, Boliek's office reassigned Woodhouse from his job as liaison to county elections boards. Republican members of the Jackson County board had said they received "pressure from Raleigh" to keep the early-voting site off the university's campus.

2026-07-13 -- Woodhouse resigned from the auditor's office [5, 6]

Dallas Woodhouse resigned from the auditor's office on July 13, 2026, about a week after being reassigned, as details of his pressure on county boards drew wider scrutiny. In his resignation letter he wrote that "election administration is fundamentally local" and acknowledged he "would have been more precise" in some communications.

2026-07-14 -- Records revealed a broader pattern of GOP-favorable site preferences [3, 4]

Further public records reported by NC Newsline and NBC News showed Boliek's office had expressed early-voting site preferences across multiple counties -- seeking a location in more-Republican Midland in Cabarrus County, urging additional sites in Republican-leaning parts of Randolph and Iredell counties, and, in an April email, telling county elections chairs they could reduce Sunday voting hours -- which matter to Black churches' "Souls to the Polls" turnout efforts -- if they added hours elsewhere, citing a March precedent the state elections board had accepted for other counties. In Granville County, a former board chair described an adopted plan that moved sites away from areas convenient to Black voters and students as implementing Boliek's "vision."

2026-07-31 -- American Oversight questioned whether the auditor's office withheld Woodhouse's texts [7]

American Oversight challenged the North Carolina Office of the State Auditor's response to its public-records demand, saying the office only began gathering additional Woodhouse text messages after media reports revealed their existence and now claims it cannot recover further records because Woodhouse has resigned and it lacks access to his personal devices. American Oversight rejected that position, arguing state law requires the agency to recover public records held by third parties and for departing officials to turn over records in their possession, and demanded the office formally seek the remaining records from Woodhouse by August 7.