As filing for legislative candidacy drew to a close in late February this year, Rowan County Democratic Party chairman Geoffrey Hoy stood waiting outside of the Rowan County Board of Elections.

Hoy was waiting to celebrate with what he called an outstanding candidate-to-be for North Carolina’s 33^rd Senate District. the declaration of this candidacy would fill all 50 Senate districts with either Democratic challengers or incumbents for the 2018 election.

And then the unthinkable happened: the would-be-candidate, Arin Wilhelm of Granite Quarry, was injured in a car accident.

So Geoffrey decided to take action, putting his name on the ballot to save space for Wilhelm.

“I’m stealing a Trump word,” he said with a laugh. “I’m the fake candidate.”

Wilhelm has since made a recovery and intends to make an attempt for a spot on the ballot as Hoy steps down.

But Hoy says it’s a slow process to remove his name and get Wilhelm there in his stead.

“The lawyers of the North Carolina Democratic Party have coached me to wait until the State Board of Elections official certifies me as the winner of the primary,” he said.

Though he was unopposed, his certification remains on hold as the results from two primaries elsewhere in the state were, as of Wednesday, still being contested.

The State Board will certify primary results all at once.

“As soon as it’s decided, then the process of the Democratic Party is the state chair has to call a meeting of the local people elected to the state’s Senatorial Executive Committee,” said Hoy.

For District 33, this will be two representatives from Rowan County and two from Stanly County, he said.

The decision is then passed onto the state Board of Elections to, once again, be certified.

It would only be then that Wilhelm could start his campaign – if he is indeed the candidate selected.

Hoy said he was unaware of any other potential candidates that Stanly County may suggest.

“The likelihood of it being someone else is probably about 2 percent,” said Hoy. “But, until it’s actually done, it won’t be done.”

Activist groups speak out against proposed voter ID law

As members of the General Assembly announced plans to reinstate North Carolina’s voter ID law, groups across the nation came out to speak against potential constitutional amendment.

One group, Color of Change of New York, worked with North Carolina native musician William Matthews to launch a new campaign called Reject Racism.

Through the campaign, Color of Change and Matthews are demanding that Amazon and Apple not build headquarters in North Carolina, in an effort to put economic pressure on North Carolina lawmakers trying to pass the law.

The campaign placed ads in the San Jose Mercury News and Seattle Times, outlets that are frequently read by the corporations’ leadership and employees to urge them to reconsider making North Carolina their new corporate homes, in response to this latest legislative push.

Brandi Collins-Dexter, Senior Campaign Director for Media, said it was irresponsible and negligent for Apple and Amazon to “even consider North Carolina as the site for their new headquarters if this law moves forward.”

Collins-Dexter said the amendment was an attack against communities of color, a sentiment echoed by the federal appeals court.

In 2016, the courts found that North Carolina’s voter ID law “disproportionately affected African Americans.”

During that time, the courts found that Republican lawmakers had used voting data to target black voters with “almost surgical precision.”

The proposed law restricted voting options that persons of color were most likely to use: early voting, same-day voter registration and straight-ticket voting. It also narrowed the list of acceptable voter IDs, excluding many alternative photo IDs used by African Americans.

The state estimates that more than 300,000 current eligible voters lack a government-issued ID, with black voters twice as likely not to have one.

“That’s why we are mounting a public education campaign through targeted media ads where they are headquartered to put them on notice,” she said. “Tech corporations cannot pay lip service to inclusivity but turn a blind eye when communities of color are under attack.”

Collins-Dexter said that Apple and Amazon have a duty to ensure that black voters be given an equal voice in North Carolina’s democracy.

Matthews agreed, saying that Apple and Amazon must take notice of North Carolina’s decision to target black voters in order to maintain power and win elections.”

“We refuse to allow corporations to prosper while black voters are silenced. That’s why we took out ads in Silicon Valley and Seattle,” he said. “If these tech giants want to build an HQ in my home state, they need to fight to mandate that our voices won’t be suppressed at the polls for centuries to come.”

The campaign asks that Apple and Amazon demand that the North Carolina General Assembly kill the proposed bill, or “risk losing thousands of jobs that would come with a headquarters in Raleigh.”

Another group, Let America Vote from Kansas City, Missouri, said the voter ID law was “a campaign to block people of color and low income North Carolinians from voting.”

“(Republicans) keep doing this because they know that, if they succeed, it will improve their chances of winning elections by tipping the scales of democracy in their favor,” said the group’s president Jason Kander. “It’s wrong. It’s undemocratic and it’s part of a years-long, racist campaign to diminish and dilute the votes of African-Americans in the state.”

Last year, House Speaker Tim Moore, who introduced the amendment, was ‘inducted’ into Let America Vote’s ‘Voter Suppression Hall of Shame.’

This list, the group said, is “of the country’s most notorious vote suppressors.”

In a news release, Let America Vote representatives attested that only two cases of in-person voter fraud were referred to a prosecutor between 2000 and 2012 out of approximately 40 million votes cast.