A North Carolina judge has temporarily blocked a Republican-backed law that strips the incoming Democratic governor of his control over election boards just before he takes office.

Wake County superior court judge Don Stephens ruled on Friday that the risk to free and fair elections justified stopping the law from taking effect this weekend until it could be reviewed more closely. Stephens plans to review the law on Thursday.

Governor-elect Roy Cooper sued on Friday to block the law, passed two weeks ago, which would end the control governors exert over statewide and county election boards.

Cooper’s lawsuit said the Republican-led state general assembly’s action was unconstitutional because it violated separation of powers by giving legislators too much control over how election laws are administered.

The changes under the proposed law would convert the state elections board from one that governors have controlled into a bipartisan body with equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats.



County election boards would have two members from each party, rather than the current three members with a majority from the governor’s party.

Cooper, who defeated incumbent Republican Pat McCrory in a November election that was only called in December, takes office on Sunday. Republicans hold both houses of the state legislature.

Political dysfunction in North Carolina has made national headlines in recent months, also regarding a failed attempt to repeal HB2, the “bathroom bill” which has prompted an outcry over the rights of transgender people and prompted big business and big names in the arts to boycott the state.

A recent report by the Election Integrity Project raised concerns over the Republican move against the Democratic governor, the gerrymandering of electoral districts and the suppression of minority voters.

EIP researcher Andrew Reynolds, a professor at the University of North Carolina, said his state had become “a deeply flawed, partly free democracy that is only slightly ahead of the failed democracies that constitute much of the developing world”.