John Locke Updates: Legal Update

State law allowing ballots to be returned up to three days after election day if postmarked by election day creates confusion and opportunities for mischief. Those who vote by mail should submit their ballot by election day.

The North Carolina Emergency Management Act (EMA) delegates too much power to the executive branch and provides too little legislative guidance and oversight. This article proposes specific changes to the EMA to correct these deficiencies and restore the separation of powers guaranteed by the North Carolina State Constitution.

The first three counts are concerned with the discriminatory way Cooper has applied the Emergency Management Act. The last two counts, on the other hand, point to problems with the EMA itself — problems that can only be solved by amending the act.

To protect us from collusive settlements designed to circumvent NC laws, especially election laws, the General Assembly needs to strengthen and clarify G.S. 1-72.2(b) so that judges cannot cut legislative intervening defendants out of the loop on such settlements. This brief explains why and how.

Free people should never have to prove they have a right to live their lives free from government interference. Instead, it is the government that bears the burden of justifying the restrictions it wishes to impose, and the more severe the proposed restrictions, the stronger the justification must be.

Iif the procedure for absentee ballots described above is to be changed, only the state legislature can do it under the U.S. Constitution. That did not happen in the states named in the Texas lawsuit — Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Wisconsin. It didn't happen in North Carolina, either.

Prior to the election, I emphasized the importance of the upcoming judicial races in North Carolina and urged voters to “choose wisely.” Judging by the results, I think they did. Compared with past years, an unusually high percentage of voters took the time to vote for judicial candidates this time around.

Cooper will continue to occupy the Governor’s mansion, and he’s made it very clear he intends to go on issuing lockdown orders without COS concurrence. Which raises a question for those of us who still object to those orders: what can we do about them now?

My level of anxiety increased steadily throughout the summer as each morning brought news of more violent protests in cities across the country and as the Democrats pursued their relentless attack on state election laws. As I looked at the election returns on the morning of November 4, however, I suddenly felt much better. Here’s how I explained it to a friend.

The Democrats' lawyers admit those ballots that were possessed by “someone who was not authorized to possess the ballot” — a clear violation of the law, and a Class I felony to boot — but demand under a memo signed by an unelected bureaucrat that those ballots should still be counted, immediately.