by Lynn Bonner, NC Newsline
July 14, 2026
State Auditor Dave Boliek “pushed hard on voter turnout especially in small Republican Counties like Yadkin,” the county’s elections board Chair Gary Mastin texted one of Boliek’s staffers this year.
Mastin wanted Boliek’s office to intervene in the planned relocation of the county elections headquarters. Mastin argued the move would hurt Republican turnout. “It’s one of the few situations that Republicans can prove (by definition) Voter suppression,” Mastin wrote.
“It will have a very negative impact on voting in the most Republican County in the state (on a percentage basis) in 2028,” Mastin wrote in a text message to Mitchell Whitley, one of Boliek’s regional field managers, about what has been the county’s only early voting site.
Voting rights advocate Bob Hall obtained the Yadkin County text messages through a public records request. It is among a bundle of emails, texts and voicemails between Boliek’s staff and local elections officials Hall and other voting rights advocates obtained that provide a look at how Boliek and his office seek to shape early voting plans.
A controversial 2024 law gave Dave Boliek elections appointment powers
Republicans passed a controversial law in 2024 that put Boliek in charge of appointing state Board of Elections members and county board chairs. The law took the power to appoint state board members away from Democrat Josh Stein, who had won the governorship.
A House bill now under consideration in the legislature would further cement Boliek’s power over elections by directing him to conduct post-election audits.
House Democrats have objected to Boliek conducting elections audits because he campaigned for Senate leader Phil Berger in the primary that Berger narrowly lost, and because Boliek himself is an elected official.
Last year, Boliek hired former GOP operative Dallas Woodhouse as a liaison to local elections boards. Woodhouse, a former state Republican Party executive director, was reassigned to a new job within Boliek’s office earlier this month and on Monday resigned from that job.
Woodhouse was persistent in gathering counties’ early voting plans and gave directions on polling sites and voting hours to some county chairs, documents show.
In an April email to county elections board chairs asking them for information on their early voting plans, he suggested that they could end Sunday voting, based on their concerns about staffing.
“For March, the NCSBE accepted reductions in Sunday voting hours when overall voting opportunities were increased by extending hours on other days, adding a Saturday or adding new locations,” he wrote.
Sunday voting hours have been important in Black communities because Black churches host Souls to the Polls events after services.
Woodhouse told Jackson County elections board Chair Bill Thompson on June 2 not to hold a vote on early voting plans because the board was poised to vote against GOP wishes. State and local Republicans do not want an early voting site on Western Carolina University’s campus.
“Don’t let them have a vote,” Woodhouse wrote in a text to Thompson that NC Local obtained.
Thompson failed to convince other board members to delay the vote.
The Jackson board approved an early voting plan that included a campus site in a 3-1 vote.
Dave Boliek and his staff give directions on county polling sites
Records also show Boliek expressed preferences for certain locations for early voting sites. In an April email exchange obtained by the NC Voter Protection Alliance, the Cabarrus elections director told the interim county manager: “My Board just met and tabled their vote on early voting sites for November. Apparently the NC Auditor would like an early voting site in Midland. The Board has tasked me with seeing if there are any available public locations.”
Midland has a population of about 5,200, and data the NC Voter Protection Alliance provided shows that it is more Republican than Cabarrus as a whole.
Randy Brechbiel, Boliek’s communications director, did not respond to emailed questions Tuesday about Boliek’s involvement in choosing early voting sites or his interest in maximizing GOP turnout.
NC Newsline filed a public records request with Boliek’s office on June 10 for communications between Boliek’s staff and county elections officials about early voting plans. So far, no records have been provided.
Woodhouse appears to have been the main connection between Boliek’s office and county elections chairs. But other Boliek staffers were involved, too.
In an email to Hall, Randolph County board Chair Aundrea Azelton summarized an April 16 telephone call with Kirk O’Steen, Boliek’s director of government affairs.
“Mr. O’Steen asked about the number of early voting sites and encouraged me to consider adding early voting sites based on the geographical size and projected influx of new residents, particularly in the Liberty area.” A Liberty site is not included in the county’s early voting plan.
Iredell County elections Chair Jason Abernathy received repeated calls and texts from Boliek’s staff, including from Woodhouse, O’Steen, and government affairs staffer Kelly Mann, about early voting plans.
In one voicemail, Mann said she wanted to schedule a time for Abernathy to talk directly to Boliek.
Another vote in Granville County after a June party-line decision
A dispute in Granville County over early voting plans is ongoing. At a contentious meeting last month, the board voted along party lines to eliminate an early voting site in Creedmoor and move a site away from downtown Oxford, WUNC reported. Opponents of the plan said it moved early voting sites to Republican areas and removed sites convenient to Black voters and students.
At that meeting, former Granville Chairman Larue Ulshafer referred to Boliek as “the boss” and said the early voting plan implemented Boliek’s vision. Ulshafer resigned from the board after that meeting. He did not return messages this week.
In an email, Ulshafer described two conversations he had with Woodhouse last spring. Ulshafter wrote that he told Woodhouse on May 27 that one location would have to close, while Woodhouse told him that “Mr. Boliek prefers not to close any locations, if possible.”
The Granville board is reconsidering its early voting plan Wednesday.
The Southern Coalition for Social Justice asked the Granville board in a letter to keep the early voting sites the board had voted to move or close. Those two sites, at the South Branch Library in Creedmoor and the Oxford Public Works building, are by far the most popular, the letter said, with 70% of early voters using those locations.
“There is no logical reason to close these two early voting sites unless the goal is to diminish access for a significant number of Granville County voters who use them successfully,” the letter says.
NC Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. NC Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Laura Leslie for questions: info@ncnewsline.com.
