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🧵 Early voting has begun in North Carolina, where voter suppression has taken hold in new ways this fall. Polling sites have been cut. Voting hours have been slashed. And the state continues to share voter data with the Trump administration. Here’s what to know 👇

⚠️ THREATS TO THE VOTE: The GOP-dominated state election board ignored massive voter opposition, especially from students, and decided to cut polling sites and voting hours. In doing so, the board denied students at the nation’s largest historically Black university a midterm polling location.

Now, as early in-person voting begins across the battleground state, North Carolina A&T student Shia Rozier and some of her classmates will walk up to 45 minutes on a dirt path, across train tracks and through debris, to cast their ballots. Others will take shuttles. Most don’t have cars.

📬 MAIL VOTING ATTACKS: The same day ballots were mailed to voters, the state board implemented more restrictions, including new rules for sealing ballots. The rules are currently being litigated in federal court, with voting rights groups condemning them as “arbitrary disenfranchisement.”

One of the rules requires voters to seal and sign an inner envelope, as well as the outside envelope. Some local election officials say up to 3% of ballots could be rejected as a result of the new envelope sealing requirement.

The state election board also voted to allow election officials to use a flawed federal immigration database to check for potential noncitizens. This involves sharing personal voter data with the Trump administration, including names, birthdates and the last four digits of Social Security numbers.

🗳️ ELECTION DENIERS ON THE BALLOT: Michael Whatley, the state’s GOP U.S. Senate candidate, has falsely claimed that “massive fraud” took place in the 2020 election. Democrats see this race as one of their best chances to flip a Senate seat.