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NHC Dems say they were surprised by CFCC's new polling site policy

NHC Democrats table and chairs are pictured left. This parcel is owned by the City of Wilmington.
Rachel Keith
/
WHQR
NHC Democrats table and chairs are pictured left. This parcel is owned by the City of Wilmington.

Cape Fear Community College is one of four early voting sites. But on Friday evening, officials with the college told the New Hanover County Democratic Party that they couldn’t set up the electioneering tent for their volunteers over the weekend.

This is an evolving story and will be updated with more information as it becomes available.

The local Democratic party has consistently stationed volunteers at the CFCC voting site, located in downtown Wilmington, where precincts have historically leaned Democratic. The Republican party has not invested nearly as much volunteer resources there.

Elections Director Rae Hunter-Havens sent an email to Jill Hopman, the chair of the New Hanover County Democratic Party, on Friday at 5:22 p.m. — the evening before the polling place opened. In her email, Hunter-Havens relayed a message from CFCC’s event and meeting manager, Shawn Breedlove, saying that Hopman needed to get approval from CFCC President Jim Morton or one of his ‘designees’ in order to set up tents, chairs, and tables.

Later that evening, Hopman sent an email to Breedlove, making that request in writing. She wrote, “we respectfully request permission to set up a standard 10x10 tent, a folding table, and two chairs in the approved electioneering zone. I am sorry to contact you so late, but we were just informed of this tonight.”

Five minutes later, Breedlove told Hopman, “Our policies have changed since the last election, and we are no longer allowing tents and tables on the college property. This is a shared space and we still need parents dropping off children and students to be able to safely access to [sic] the building. You are welcome to electioneer from the sidewalk.”

CFCC's 'No Solicitation' Policy
CFCC Handbook
CFCC's 'No Solicitation' Policy

Hopman then responded, “How does a tent or chairs on a sidewalk, to keep our elderly volunteers out of the sun or allow them to sit down, prevent anyone from dropping off students? And why are we just being informed of this at 9pm the night before the polling site opens?”

Breedlove didn’t respond. Hopman told WHQR that she sees this as a “rejection” of their request.

Since Hopman didn’t get approval, she says she had to adjust over the weekend.

“A lot of our volunteers are a bit older, and they can't just stand up and walk around the sidewalk, and they can't be out in the sun or the rain. So we kind of had to scramble to get other people to cover it,” she said.

Hopman told WHQR that there were tents and tables and chairs out over the weekend from other organizations, but said the NHC Democratic party wouldn’t do the same until she got approval from CFCC.

However, she did say that the party put up a table and chairs in the green space owned by the City of Wilmington, where CFCC has no jurisdiction.

She added that this had never been an issue before at CFCC, nor does the party have trouble with this setup at any other early polling site.

Christina Hallingse, a spokesperson for CFCC, told WHQR that the Board of Elections was informed of this new policy on October 16, even though it was adopted by the CFCC Board of Trustees on July 20, 2023.

Hallingse said, “It is the responsibility of the Board of Elections to communicate changes with polling sites.”

WHQR also reached out to Board of Elections Director Rae Hunter-Havens, who provided the following context:

Discussions about the electioneering changes at CFCC began last week when we were first informed that CFCC wanted to change the electioneering guidelines at this site. We immediately reached out to the legal team at the State Board and county attorney’s office to determine if these changes were legally permissible given our current usage agreement and state law. We received the legal guidance needed to continue our discussions with CFCC and county stakeholders on Thursday, October 26th. At that time, we shared this guidance with stakeholders at the county and CFCC to discuss how we could best move forward to ensure that the electioneering guidelines at CFCC were following state laws and rules. We notified both parties as soon as we were able to establish an agreement with CFCC representatives.

One of the purposes of establishing usage agreements with our private and public facilities is to allow the facility representatives to share their concerns and expectations prior to the election cycle, not during it.

Rachel is a graduate of UNCW's Master of Public Administration program, specializing in Urban and Regional Policy and Planning. She also received a Master of Education and two Bachelor of Arts degrees in Political Science and French Language & Literature from NC State University. She served as WHQR's News Fellow from 2017-2019. Contact her by email: rkeith@whqr.org or on Twitter @RachelKWHQR