Is late party switching allowed for NC candidates? Wilson case tests state law
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- State Board of Elections overruled Wilson County, voted 3-2 to keep Knight on ballot.
- Law bars candidates who lacked 90-day party affiliation from filing for a primary.
- Democrats accused the state board of partisan bias and flouting the law.
For roughly five hours on Dec. 1, Bobby Knight, a candidate for sheriff in Wilson County, was a Democrat.
Prior to that, he had been a registered Republican for over a decade, but his brief switchover — which he said was caused by an accidental swipe on the DMV’s website — put him at odds with a state law that prohibits candidates from changing parties right before an election.
Nevertheless, on Tuesday, the State Board of Elections voted to allow Knight to remain on the ballot — overruling a bipartisan decision from the Wilson County Board of Elections, which had ruled against Knight’s candidacy.
The state’s decision came in a 3-2 vote, with the board’s Republican majority prevailing.
“I would find it to be, quite frankly, an abuse of discretion to not correct an error that is timely brought and that it is — by all accounts and by what the record shows — an error, rather than an intentional change of party,” Republican board member Stacy “Four” Eggers said.
But the decision has drawn a harsh rebuke from Democrats, who accused the newly Republican-led state board of flouting the law.
“The State Board of Elections has an obligation to apply eligibility requirements consistently, not bend them to benefit Republican candidates,” Anderson Clayton, chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, said in a statement.
“Yesterday’s selective interpretation of the law from the State Board of Elections will only further erode confidence in a body that has become increasingly political.”
The law in question, which was passed in 2018, states that “No person shall be permitted to file as a candidate in a party primary unless that person has been affiliated with that party for at least 90 days as of the date of that person filing such notice of candidacy.”
What happened to candidate’s registration?
Even though Knight changed his registration back to Republican the very same day, he had already placed himself outside the 90-day window required to run in the GOP primary. This prompted two of his opponents to file a challenge to his candidacy.
One of those opponents, Democrat Brandon Barbrey, alleged through his lawyer on Tuesday that Knight’s party-switch was actually a “clear picture of strategic maneuvering, not technological error.”
Barbrey suggested in a written complaint that Knight decided to switch parties after learning that Wilson’s current sheriff, Calvin Woodard, a Democrat, was retiring.
He said that Knight spent the morning calling other law enforcement officers to determine who Woodard would endorse and what party that candidate would be.
Rhyan Breen, Knight’s attorney, said his client’s switch was an honest mistake and contended that Barbrey’s testimony relied only on his own interpretation of Knight’s motivations.
“His beliefs aren’t facts; his conjecture isn’t data,” Breen said.
Democratic board member Siobhan Millen, who voted against Knight’s candidacy, said the state was opening itself up to “a lot of shenanigans.”
“People are going to go in, hear who’s running, decide which party — and I think that’s just a Pandora’s box that we shouldn’t get into,” she said.
In a statement on Wednesday, House Democratic Leader Robert Reives echoed her concerns, recalling Republicans’ unprecedented efforts to overturn the results of the 2024 North Carolina Supreme Court election.
“Republican leadership showed how far they were willing to go when they challenged Allison Riggs’ victory in 2024, threatening to throw out valid ballots in order to change the outcome of a decided election,” he said in a statement. “This is a slippery slope and a bad start for this partisan election board.”
After the state board voted in Knight’s favor, board Chair Francis De Luca, a Republican, acknowledged that the dispute may not be completely over.
“I’m sure that we may hear about this one again, so we’ll see,” he said. “But until then, he is a candidate.”
This story was originally published January 21, 2026 at 3:14 PM.
