Tag: North Carolina politics

RALEIGH

When news broke last week that Dallas Woodhouse would serve in a new role as the North Carolina state auditor’s election liaison, the name was familiar to many.

Woodhouse, who served as the executive director of the state Republican Party from 2015 to 2019, has had a long and outspoken career in North Carolina politics.

From sparring with reporters on Twitter, to bringing handcuffs as a prop to an MSNBC interview to being admonished by his mother on live television for fighting with his liberal brother about politics, Woodhouse has been a consistent presence in the state’s political sphere.

Throughout his career, he’s also frequently voiced his support for conservative views on a variety of election issues that he may now be tasked with overseeing.

While the auditor’s office has released scant details about Woodhouse’s new role, it did say he would work to “ensure election integrity” with local officials and be a resource in developing early voting plans.

Here’s a look at some of Woodhouse’s past statements on election policy and more:

Early voting

For much of his career, Woodhouse advocated for limiting early voting and eliminating Sunday voting altogether.

In 2016, he asked county election board members to “make party line changes to early voting” by cutting hours at polling sites and potentially getting rid of voting sites on college campuses.

He also told county board members that he believed same-day registration was “ripe with voter fraud, or the opportunity to commit it.”

Defending the requests, he told The News & Observer at the time that he was “an unabashed partisan.”

In a 2022 tweet, Woodhouse railed against Sunday voting, saying the day is for “faith, family and friends.”

“We will concede rather than take part of that scourge on our society,” he wrote.

Traditionally, Sunday voting has been popular among Black voters and has been featured in “souls to the polls” events organized by churches.

In 2024, Woodhouse shifted stances on some election policy issues.

In an opinion piece for the Carolina Journal, Woodhouse encouraged Republicans to vote early or by mail.

“If you wait longer to vote, your vote costs conservative candidates and parties more money,” he wrote. “Less money is available to turn out other voters needed to cross (the) finish line. Conservatives must play the game by today’s rules, which means maximizing our efforts to bank votes before Election Day.”

NCGOP scandals

Woodhouse’s resignation as director of the state GOP in 2019 came on the heels of several scandals, including one that resulted in a party official pleading guilty to federal charges.

The first incident stemmed from the 2018 midterm elections. Republican Mark Harris, who was running for the state’s 9th Congressional District, became mired in a ballot harvesting scandal that eventually led the state to call a new election.

As director of the party, Woodhouse defended Harris throughout much of the ensuing drama, urging the state to certify Harris as the winner despite evidence that an operative for the campaign had harvested ballots.

“If the disputed ballot count don’t fly high, you must certify,” he tweeted in 2019.

Ultimately, the state held a new election, which Harris did not run in.

In 2024, however, Harris ran for an open congressional seat and won.

Shortly after the ballot harvesting saga, the NC GOP became embroiled in a corruption scandal involving party chair Robin Hayes.

Hayes was indicted as part of a federal bribery investigation involving a North Carolina billionaire.

Woodhouse, who was not a target of the investigation, resigned shortly after Hayes was indicted.

Hayes eventually pled guilty to one charge of lying to the FBI and was sentenced to a year’s probation. President Donald Trump pardoned Hayes in the last hours of his first term.

January 6

Following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Woodhouse quickly denounced the rioters and affirmed his belief in the 2020 election results.

“I believe @JoeBiden won the election,” he wrote on Twitter. “I said that the night the race was called. @realDonaldTrump could have done things different to change the outcome, months ago. But I believe in elections, the rule of law and peace.”

Woodhouse did question an investigation into former U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, whose candidacy was challenged because of his alleged ties to Jan. 6.

Cawthorn, a North Carolina Republican, had spoken at Trump’s rally near the Capitol prior to the attack.

“There is no public evidence that Cawthorn did anything other than engaging in political speech on January 6,” Woodhouse wrote in the Carolina Journal.

A judge later rejected the challenge to Cawthorn’s candidacy.

In his opinion piece, Woodhouse called Jan. 6 “disturbing” but said that whether the events rose to the definition of an insurrection was “a matter of considerable debate.”

Griffin/Riggs fight

Woodhouse also weighed in several times on the recent legal battle over the results of the 2024 Supreme Court election.

While Election Day results initially favored Republican Jefferson Griffin, the race narrowly flipped in Democrat Allison Riggs’ favor after outstanding absentee and provisional ballots were counted.

Woodhouse declared victory for Griffin before ballot counting had finished, calling Riggs an “election outcome denier” on Twitter.

After the final vote totals showed Riggs in the lead, Griffin sued and attempted to throw out over 60,000 ballots cast in the race using a variety of then-untested legal arguments.

When Riggs revealed that her parents were two of the voters Griffin was attempting to disqualify, Woodhouse sarcastically responded to the news by saying, “Breaking: Supreme Court Justice accuses her own parents of voter fraud !!”

Griffin’s legal battle lasted six months and ended in May after a federal judge ruled decisively in Riggs’ favor. Griffin conceded the race shortly after.

Woodhouse did not respond to a request for comment on this story.