RALEIGH, N.C. — Should Democratic North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein retain his control of election boards? Or should the power be given to the newly elected Republican state auditor, Dave Boliek?

That was the question driving court arguments Monday in a case whose outcome could flip the partisan majority of the State Board of Elections and its 100 constituent county boards of elections.

“For 150 years, the auditor ain’t ever had nothing to do with elections,” Jim Phillips, an attorney for Stein, said.

But Matthey Tilley, an attorney representing the state’s Republican legislative leaders, argued that it was entirely up to the General Assembly to delegate these powers to Council of State members.

“This is obviously something that the governor does not like, but it is what our founders thought out very carefully and what they wanted as a check against the governor,” he said.

A three-judge panel consisting of two Republicans and one Democrat heard the case in Wake County Superior Court, but did not immediately issue a ruling.

Unless a court intervenes, Boliek is set to take control of the State Board of Elections on May 1, likely appointing a new Republican majority.

That could have major implications for the ongoing challenge to the results of the state Supreme Court election, in which Republican Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin has sought to overturn his narrow loss.

The dispute is one of many legal cases over the legislature’s repeated attempts to remove power from the governor’s office.

Over the last eight years, the Republican-controlled legislature has made numerous attempts to wrest control of the State Board of Elections away from the governor. All of those schemes were defeated by either courts or voters. But in December, the legislature tried something different.

Senate Bill 382, passed in the final days of Republicans’ veto-proof supermajority in the General Assembly, strips the governor of his power to appoint a majority of members to the powerful board and transfers it to the state auditor — a position which had just been won by a Republican after Democrats held the office for 16 years.

Stein quickly sued over the bill after Republicans overrode then-Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the legislation.

If the bill is allowed to take effect, Boliek will become the only state auditor in the country responsible for overseeing elections.

Judges on the panel expressed skepticism about this unique arrangement.

“If we’re going to elect these people, shouldn’t their title ... conform to what they actually do?” Judge Edwin Wilson, a registered Democrat, said.

Tilley pointed out that other Council of State members have somewhat nontraditional duties, such as the state treasurer, who oversees the State Health Plan.

Judge Lori Hamilton, a Republican, questioned Tilley about why the legislature chose to give the power to Boliek instead of the secretary of state — a role which has election oversight powers in many other states.

“There’s one glaring reason,” Hamilton said, referring to the fact that the office is currently held by a Democrat.

“That’s theirs (the legislature’s) to do — theirs is to do politics,” Tilley said.

W. Ellis Boyle, an attorney for Boliek, who has joined the lawsuit to defend the power shift, argued that the auditor would be better suited to oversee the election boards because his position is less political than the governor’s and has less contentious electoral campaigns.

“There may be a very good reason to take it out of that arena and put it into the auditor sphere that is much less expensive and, at least anecdotally, less partisan,” he said.

But Hamilton pushed back on this notion, asking “if it’s not a bare-faced power grab, why now?”

“... It’s not less partisan — it’s perhaps less public, it’s perhaps less well-funded,” she said. “But if the General Assembly starts stacking up powers and duties under the auditor’s umbrella, it’s going to become very, very public and very, very contested.”

The judges did not indicate when they would issue a ruling, but their order is unlikely to be the final step in the case.

The dispute could eventually reach the state Supreme Court, which has been more willing to rule in the legislature’s favor since Republicans gained a majority in 2023.

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