Surprise! The destructive, last minute mischief and mayhem continue at the Legislative Building. The latest development: Republicans unveiled a new bill out of nowhere late last night to limit early voting in North Carolina. The proposal would come as a proposed amendment to an old bill from last year — what’s referred to in legislative parlance as a “proposed committee substitute” or “PCS.” Former legislative staffer and elections law expert Gerry Cohen summarized the measure in a series of tweets earlier this morning. Here are a few:

Proposed #ncga House Committee Substitute for SB325 (unrelated to the earlier version) https://t.co/csUi2tRn7J makes major #ncpol early voting changes. Bill is calendared for House Rules for 10 am. Drops early voting to 10 days from 17. More ….. /1 — Gerry Cohen (@gercohen) June 14, 2018

This amends the statute that was voided by federal court making it harder to compare with what it would have been this year and 2020 without this bill. More ….. /2 #ncpol — Gerry Cohen (@gercohen) June 14, 2018

Early voting will be 10 days rather than 17 but final Saturday eliminated and starts on a Wednesday. Thus maximum of one Saturday and one Sunday versus three Saturdays and two Sundays under current law. /3 #ncpol — Gerry Cohen (@gercohen) June 14, 2018

Bill appears to require all sites picked to be open 7 am to 7 pm all 7 weekdays with confusing exception. For this year there is a floor of the same number of total hours as 2010. Language allowing less than 7 am to 7 pm is confusing to me /4 #ncpol — Gerry Cohen (@gercohen) June 14, 2018

Within whatever plan County adopts, by requiring 7 am to 7 pm appears to prioritize longer hours each day versus number of sites. Requires uniform weekend hours for the one Saturday and one Sunday so if Sunday is 1 to 5 Saturday would be same as I read it /5 #ncpol — Gerry Cohen (@gercohen) June 14, 2018

PCS was released at 11:31 pm last night for 10 am meeting this morning. Huge early voting changes. Short title of bill says “expanded early voting” but that’s if you view more hours per weekend day versus many less days and especially drastic weekend cuts as “expanded” /7 #ncpol — Gerry Cohen (@gercohen) June 14, 2018

Policy Watch will provide further updates as the day goes on.