Welcome & Ballot Basics

Amanda Benbow Lunn 0:08

Hello, my friends. This is Amanda Benbow Lunn with the NC Deep Dive, and this episode will feature one of our candidate conversations for the 2026 general election. We should have 18 contested races with 46 candidates in Southern Wake County, specifically Holly Springs and Fuquay Varina. There will be other races on your ballot that only have one candidate running. We will not be delving into those in this segment. Of course, the races on your ballot will vary based on your address and the specific district your residence falls within. You can always find your jurisdictions and your sample ballot by searching NC Voter Search made available by the North Carolina State Board of Elections. Once you get to the page, you'll fill out your information. It will populate with all those who share your name or information that you provided. You'll scroll until you find you, click on it, just make sure that it's the right name and address, and then you'll be able to scroll down to whatever section you might be interested in. There are so many races, so your ballot will likely have both a front and a back. So make sure you do flip it over when you're voting. If your time is short, you can search each episode's chapters or the transcripts at ncdeepdive.com. You can search for the questions that you're most interested in, especially if you're trying to compare them between candidates. For this particular episode, we are delving into the North Carolina Supreme Court Associate Justice or seat one. There will be two candidates running in this race. You will have the opportunity to vote for one of them on your ballot. The two candidates are Sarah Stevens with the Republican Party and Anita Earls with the Democratic Party. Without further ado, my friends, let's dive

Anita Earls: Intro, Why, & Experience

Amanda Benbow Lunn 2:00

in. On this episode, I am pleased to be speaking with Justice Anita Earls, who is running for re-election for the NC Supreme Court Associate Justice Seat 1. Thank you so much, Justice Earls, for joining us today. You want to take a few moments to introduce yourself and go into why you're running for this office and what experiences have prepared you to serve in this role.

Justice Anita Earls 2:23

Yes, well, thank you so much for this opportunity. My name is Anita Earls, and I serve as the Senior Associate Justice on the North Carolina Supreme Court. I was elected in 2018 and we have eight-year terms, so I'm on the ballot again this year. I am running to keep my seat because I appreciate how important our court is and the decisions that we make, how they impact everything from what people pay for electricity to what the structure of our state government will be. The experiences that have prepared me for this role included the fact that I was a civil rights attorney for 30 years. That means I stood up with people whose rights were being violated in one way or another. I tried cases in state and federal courts to juries at both civil and criminal cases. I argued cases in appellate courts in both the Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals and in the North Carolina Court of Appeals, the North Carolina Supreme Court, and I've now been on the bench for seven and a half years. And I think all of those legal experiences as an attorney have prepared me well for to continue carrying out this role.

Responsibilities Of A Justice

Amanda Benbow Lunn 3:36

Perfect. What do you believe is the most important responsibility of a North Carolina Supreme Court justice?

Justice Anita Earls 3:42

Well, our responsibilities are actually a combination of what's in the state constitution. So the court is created by the state constitution, and that constitution sets up the structure of state government and makes clear that there are three branches of government, and the role of our court is to interpret the laws, decide controversies that come before us, and serve as a check and balance on the other two branches of government. In particular, making sure that both the executive and the legislative branches follow the state constitution. There's also a code of judicial conduct that lays out what our responsibilities are as judges and justices. It applies to every sitting judge in the state. And that code makes clear that our first and foremost responsibility is adjudicative, in other words, judging the cases that come before us. But there's also in that code an entire section about our every judge's administrative responsibilities. And those look different depending on what level of court you're serving on. But as a member of the state Supreme Court, we have responsibility to make sure that the court system, both in civil cases and criminal cases, is working well and serving all of the citizens of the state. And so my primary responsibility is to decide the cases that are presented to us. But there's also a very important role in making sure that our justice system serves everyone. And the way I've carried out that role, there's multiple ways that I've tried to do that, but one is through the Equal Access to Justice Commission that was created by an order of the state Supreme Court. In fact, it was Chief Justice Ide Beverly Lake who created the Equal Access to Justice Commission. I served as the first secretary of that commission when it was created all those years ago, but now I serve as a Special Advisor. And the purpose of that commission is to make sure that people who do not have the ability to pay for a lawyer can get access to the legal advice and representation that they need to manage their affairs. And so that includes people who might be facing eviction or foreclosure on their homes, women who might need a domestic violence protective order, veterans who may not be getting the health treatments that they need or hurricane victims who need help figuring out how to navigate the possible systems of aid after a natural disaster. So there's a whole wide range of people across North Carolina who need legal advice and assistance. and Yet our resources in this state are very limited. So that's an example of carrying out an administrative role in trying to make sure that the legal system serves everyone.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 6:22

Perfect.

What Do Voters Misunderstand

Amanda Benbow Lunn 6:23

What do you believe voters misunderstand about what a justice can and cannot do?

Justice Anita Earls 6:28

I think voters don't realize the full range of the types of cases that we hear. And so, you know, I start out by saying our most important responsibility is to decide the controversies that come before us. And we actually decide so many different types of cases. I mentioned, I think, some of the kind of pocketbook issues. So things like how much people pay for electricity. Under state law, it is the role of our court to review decisions of the Utilities Commission. So when a utility company wants to raise someone's electricity rates, the commission reviews that and then we review what the commission does to make sure it's consistent with state law. We also make decisions about whether someone will be fairly compensated if they're injured on the job, a lot of decisions about what might happen if you're injured in some other way, whether it's a car accident or medical malpractice. Just a lot of ways in which people may themselves never have a case in front of our court, but we are making decisions that impact their lives. And I think maybe people are a little more aware of the more controversial cases we've decided, such as the issue of whether or not our schools across the state are providing a sound basic education. That was the Leandro litigation. Our court recently, earlier this year, ended that case. The majority did. I wrote a dissent explaining why I thought it was wrong to end the opportunity for our children to get sufficient funding for their school systems. We've also decided cases about partisan gerrymandering, cases about voter ID. And in the 2024 election, the Republican majority on our court ruled that ballots of over military and overseas voters would not count in that election contest between Judge Jefferson Griffin and Justice Allison Riggs. That order was ultimately ruled to be unconstitutional by a federal court. But as you can see, there's just a wide range of types of cases that we handle, and I think people are not always aware of that.

Biggest Issue

Justice Anita Earls 8:23

Amanda Benbow Lunn 8:23

Okay. What do you believe is the most important issue or challenge facing the people you would represent?

Justice Anita Earls 8:29

Well, let me be clear. As a justice, I don't represent anyone. When I'm on the bench, when I'm on the bench, I'm a neutral party listening to the arguments of all the people who come before us. As an elected official, I certainly represent all the people of the state. So to answer the question from the perspective of an elected official, I think that the most important issues facing our state are some of the ones I've already mentioned. So will our public schools be adequately funded? What should our election districts look like? What should happen with the statute that implemented the voter ID constitutional amendment? Issues about the structure of state government. So we have on our docket to be heard right after the election two cases involving whether or not the legislature constitutionally can take powers that previously the governor had and give those to other council state members or to themselves. And including the controversial case about whether or not it was permissible under the state constitution for the legislature to take control over the state board of elections from the governor and provide that instead as a power of the state auditor's office. That case is now pending in our court. So those are examples of some of the issues that I think are very important to the people of the state.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 9:48

Al

Priorities & Hopes for Accomplishment

Amanda Benbow Lunn 9:49

right. If elected, what would you prioritize and what specifically would you hope to accomplish during your term?

Justice Anita Earls 9:55

I would continue to prioritize what I have my first seven and a half years on the bench, and that is trying to make sure that we follow the rule of law and that we guarantee equal justice under the law to every litigant who comes before us. And that's what I would hope to continue to prioritize. And I would want to address those issues both in the civil context, so civil disputes as well as in the criminal cases that come before us, and looking more broadly at the criminal justice system and how our courts have an important role to play in protecting the public and providing justice for victims of crime.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 10:35

Okay.

When Legal Outcome Conflicts with Personal Beliefs

Amanda Benbow Lunn 10:36

How should a justice approach a case when the legally required outcome conflicts with the justice's personal beliefs or preferred policy outcome?

Justice Anita Earls 10:44

Without a doubt, it's our responsibility to follow the law. And that means the law as it is provided in the state constitution, state statutes. Sometimes we are applying federal law, federal constitutional provisions, but clearly our responsibility is to follow the law. There may be important differences of opinion about what the law says and how it applies to a particular set of facts, but as justices, that's what we swear an oath to uphold, and that's our responsibility.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 11:13

Okay.

Judicial Philosophy & Methodology

Amanda Benbow Lunn 11:14

When interpreting the Constitution, what judicial philosophy or interpretive methodology guides you? How do you weigh the text and original meaning of a constitutional provision against historical context, precedent, historical practice, and applying that provision to circumstances that may not have existed when it was adopted?

Justice Anita Earls 11:34

The approach that our court should take is set in precedence, decisions that our court has already issued, where we make clear that the first thing we look to in interpreting a statute or a constitutional revision is the actual language. Then there are a whole range of statutory and constitutional interpretation canons, if you will, rules of interpretation that we should follow. Things like if there's a list of items in a statute, that doesn't necessarily mean that it excludes other items depending on the language. It's pretty well set out in our case law how we should approach the interpretation of statutes. And that's what I endeavor to do in every case. The further part of that question, in which you ask, how do we apply constitutional provisions that were drafted long before things like satellite-based managing, for example, exists? So applying the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, how do we apply that constitutional provision to a technology that did not exist when it was enacted? And I think that courts try very hard with integrity and intellectual rigor to understand the purpose and intent of the original provision and how that might apply in current circumstances. I also think that it's important that we stick to the text of a law or the constitution because if people are going to follow the law, they have to understand what it is and we should apply it based on what they understand it to be. But inevitably, there may be differences of opinion about how a particular constitutional provision should apply to current circumstances. And I think that's part of the reason why there are seven of us on this court. If it was easy to do, and if it really was just calling balls and strikes, you'd only need one umpire. But in fact, these are sometimes can be very complex situations, and it seems to me quite natural that there might be differences of opinion. So then the question really becomes how should the court engage in a deliberative process that ideally incorporates everyone's point of view and comes up with a resolution that is best for the people of the state? And that's what I would hope our court would attempt to do.

Interpreting the NC Constitution vs. US Constitution

Amanda Benbow Lunn 13:45

Okay. Now, does that approach differ at all when interpreting the NC North Carolina Constitution versus the U.S. Constitution?

Justice Anita Earls 13:52

No, I don't think so. The only difference would be that I do think it can be helpful to look at how other courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and other state Supreme Courts, have interpreted the provision at issue or similar provisions at issue. And so you might be looking at different precedents when you're interpreting the U.S. Constitution than if you're interpreting North Carolina's Constitution, because there are other states that have similar provisions. So, for example, the right to a sound basic education in a uniform system of public education, that language is somewhat unique, but it's nowhere in the federal constitution. There is no right to a sound basic education in the U.S. Constitution. But other state constitutions do include provisions for education rights. They may not have the same language. So when interpreting the North Carolina Constitution's education provisions, and understand that right is not only in Article I of our state constitution, Article IX of our state constitution is entitled education. And it lays out all the things that the state should be doing to guarantee that children all have the opportunity to have a sound basic education in this state. So in interpreting that state constitutional provision, it won't help us to look at federal law because it just isn't there. But there might be other states, Supreme Courts, who have interpreted their state constitutions, and it could be helpful. When we're looking at a federal constitutional provision, so the Fourth Amendment is one that we often have to interpret. There, there's a lot of Supreme Court precedent on the Fourth Amendment. And so in the course of a case, we have to decide whether someone's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures has been violated. We can look to see what the US Supreme Court has said and sometimes what other federal courts have said. So that's a little bit of a difference, but otherwise, I think the methods and the interpretive tools are pretty much the same.

Judicial Restraint Defined

Amanda Benbow Lunn 15:48

Okay. What does judicial restraint mean to you?

Justice Anita Earls 15:51

Well, I would say there's two concepts of it. One is perhaps more political than the other. I think it's often used in a political sense to essentially label conservative judges and justices. And so in that context, people who identify as constitutional conservatives will say that they exercise judicial restraint. If you take it out of that political context, I think it means understanding the proper judicial role. And that can apply to trial judges as well as appellate judges. And the concept is that you don't stray beyond your proper judicial role. And unfortunately, I think it's too often bandied about as a political criticism rather than being understood just basically as a limit on what the role of the judiciary is. There's no question but that, as I described earlier, in the state government, we have three branches of government. It's certainly the legislature's role to write the laws, and it's the court's role to interpret them. And judicial restraint says we only interpret the laws, we don't write the laws.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 16:58

Okay.

Impartiality Defined in Practice

Amanda Benbow Lunn 16:59

And how would you define impartiality?

Justice Anita Earls 17:01

I think I've actually talked about this a lot publicly. I think that the fundamental notion is that we treat everyone the same and we don't show favoritism to any particular party. But I also think that to be impartial, you need to understand what someone's understanding is. You know, how do you carry that out as a judge? And I think that the way you carry that out is to recognize what your own personal commitments, values, predispositions, implicit biases are, and make sure that you correct for them. And there's actually a lot of scholarship on this. There are states where, and I think there's some programs in North Carolina as well, where trial judges, for example, will have a bench card that will suggest that they ask themselves certain questions to make sure that they aren't allowing their own uh ideas, their own personal views to influence how they're viewing the litigants in a case or how they're viewing the evidence or how they're viewing the legal issues before them. And so I think that being impartial is not simply about saying, oh, I promise I'm fair. I think it's about recognizing your own personal views and making sure you take those out of the process when you're deciding a case.

Judicial Independence Defined

Amanda Benbow Lunn 18:15

Excellent. And how would you define judicial independence?

Justice Anita Earls 18:19

Well, here I think that again, the question needs to start with an understanding of what is the biggest threat to independence in North Carolina right now. Because I think often there's a lot of focus on possible conflicts of interest, if depending on who might have contributed to a candidate's campaign. And I will say, again, the code of judicial conduct is a pretty good guide here because it lays out circumstances in which a judge should recuse from a case. But my sense is that right now the biggest threat to judicial independence comes from the legislature in North Carolina and threats to impeach justices who might rule in ways that legislators don't like. And I think the code of judicial conduct requires us to rule the way the law requires, even if it's unpopular, right? And so I would define judicial independence as a court and justices who are willing to uphold the law, whether it's popular or unpopular, and who show independence from the legislature and are willing to examine whether laws that litigants bring before us are constitutional or not. And understanding that the court only rules on cases that are litigant, you know, it's the attorneys and their clients who decide to bring a case to us. We only rule on the cases and the issues that come before us. But when they do, when parties do say we think this law is unconstitutional, judicial independence requires us to look at that without showing fear or favor of the other branches of government.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 19:53

Exce llent. What role

Role of Precedent In Decision Making

Amanda Benbow Lunn 19:54

should precedent play in Supreme Court decision making?

Justice Anita Earls 19:57

Again, this is kind of set out by our cases. There are two concepts that we apply in the law. So one is starry decisis. That means once you've decided what the law is, you don't change that. And I think that's actually central to the concept of equal justice under the law because if someone brings a case in year one and the court says the law is X, the person who brings the case in year two should also get X as the law because they should be treated equally. But then there's another concept called law of the case. And that says once you've decided what the law is in a particular case, you shouldn't change it as the litigation goes forward. And that's, I think, equally an important aspect of precedent and respect for precedent. And I think when that is abandoned by courts, it weakens the public's faith in the impartiality of the law, in the rule of law, and it then results in a situation where people are not getting treated equally.

Approach to the Responsibilities and Decision-Making Authority of this Office

Amanda Benbow Lunn 20:56

How would you approach the responsibilities and decision-making authority of this particular office?

Justice Anita Earls 21:02

Well, all I can tell you is that my record for the past seven and a half years is clear in terms of my efforts to take seriously every case that comes before us. The respect I show to the litigants and to my colleagues in the written opinions that I've authored, whether when I'm writing for the majority or whether I'm writing a dissent. And so I approach this work as very serious, very important to the people of the state. It's hard work. It's not a retirement passion project. It is a serious and time-consuming thousands of pages of briefs. I read the briefs and the record in every case that comes before us, and I'm committed to giving the people of the state the fair, impartial, independent justice that I believe they've voted for and that they deserve.

NC Supreme Court Process

Amanda Benbow Lunn 21:48

Could you kind of walk us through what happens when somebody gets their case opened in the North Carolina Supreme Court? Like what does the timeline look like? How is it processed? How do you get together and make your decisions and then write the opinions?

Justice Anita Earls 22:05

So there's some aspects of what you've asked that we're sort of bound to keep confidential, but I will say what is public. And actually, there's a very important change that has happened since the seven and a half years that I've been on the court. When I joined the court and up until a little over a year ago, people had the right to come to our court if they lost their case in the Court of Appeals, but there was a dissent. We called it the right of appeal based on a dissent. And ever since the Court of Appeals, that 15-member intermediate court, was created in 1967, that right existed in North Carolina. The General Assembly, in its wisdom, eliminated that right in a budget bill. So now, in order to be heard in front of our court, it requires the votes of three and sometimes four justices. There's two exceptions to that. We have to hear appeals in death penalty cases, and we have to hear appeals from the business court. And those two types of cases come directly to our court. We also hear the utilities commission cases. But other than that, every other type of case, we as a court have to vote on whether or not we'll hear the case. And so typically, cases should come to us from the Court of Appeals. So that means someone had a trial or some other type of resolution in the trial court, district court or superior court. The party that lost believed that the law was not applied correctly. Because understand, the trial courts are the fact finders. We in the appellate courts are supposed to accept the facts as they were found and determined by the trial court. So the trial court decides the facts. One party thinks, no, they got the law wrong. They appeal to the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals issues a decision, and the party who lost says, wait a minute, that law, the Court of Appeals didn't get the law right. They asked us to take the case. And there are very clear criteria that should be applied to our decision about whether to take the case. That criteria includes if we think the Court of Appeals decision is in conflict with a decision of our court. Secondly, if we think that the case raises an important issue to the jurisprudence of the state. In other words, is it a new issue that we've never decided before? Or is it a decision where the law's been unclear and it's important for us to clarify the law, that those might be situations where we conclude it's important to the jurisdiction of the state. The third time we should hear a case is this is all in the rules of appellate procedure. The third reason would be if it's an issue that is important generally to the public. So for example, we heard a case involving whether health insurance benefits could be changed for literally hundreds of thousands of state employee retirees. And that case met at least that standard because it impacted hundreds of thousands of people across the state. So those are the three things that decide whether we take the case. Once we have decided to take the case, so a lawyer has filed a petition, asked us to take it, we've considered it, we've voted at least three votes, and sometimes depending on this type of case and how it comes to us, it takes four votes. But at least there were three or four votes to say yes, we should hear the case. Then the parties brief the case, they make their written submissions to us, and then the case is calendar for oral argument. Not we don't hear argument in every single case, but most. Currently, we are only hearing about 60 cases this year. So when we hear a case, we have oral argument. Then at the end of the day, we go back to our conference room, we discuss the cases, then we vote, we write opinions, we circulate them to the whole court, and then those opinions are released publicly. So that's the general process, and I've probably gone into way too much detail, but that's how a case is processed in our courts.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 25:56

It's fascinating. Thanks for sharing

Deciding What Takes Precedence

Amanda Benbow Lunn 25:58

that with us. When priorities compete or resources are limited, how would you decide what takes precedence? Now, does this affect the court's workload, allocation of judicial resources? How do any of those things affect the North Carolina Supreme Court?

Justice Anita Earls 26:13

Well, I do think that those are important questions for the trial level as well as the appellate level. And to some degree, I've been trying to address the lack of resources at the trial level. I currently co-chair along with Justice Bill Berger Jr., the court's Commission on Practice Innovation. And the purpose of that commission is to look at what we call legal deserts. So parts of the state that do not have enough lawyers. And as I've been going around the state talking to voters for the past year and a half, there are definitely parts of our state where district attorneys are very frustrated. They cannot get their cases tried because there aren't enough public defenders or attorneys on the public defender list. And that means delays in getting cases tried, criminal cases, and you know, that's just not good for victims. It's not good for the public. So that's an issue that the administrative office of the courts and our court have responsibility for addressing. When it comes to our court, it's a little bit different situation. The jurisdiction of our court has changed since I've been on the court. So in earlier years, we've issued as many as 180 opinions. So it has fluctuated significantly. And the challenge there is that's something I don't individually control. The Chief Justice has control over our calendar. He decides how and when cases are calendared and what our calendar looks like. In other words, when we will be sitting and hearing cases. The general statutes provide that we are supposed to hear cases roughly in the order that they are filed. And I do think that there is legitimate cause for concern that there are some cases that take a very, very long time both to be decided on whether we're going to hear them and then actually decided. So I think it's a really important question and something that I definitely would like to see more attention to.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 28:03

What should

Accountability: What & How

Amanda Benbow Lunn 28:04

voters hold you accountable for if you are elected and how?

Justice Anita Earls 28:08

I think that voters should hold us accountable to the responsibilities that we have under the state constitution and under the code of judicial conduct. We're holding us accountable to carrying out our role, both in terms of deciding the cases that come before us and operating in a way that shows we are fair, impartial, independent, that we carry out our function to hold the other two branches of government accountable to the state constitution. The how is even harder to describe, I think, because while our oral arguments are now on YouTube, both live streamed and then they are stored there. So you can go and watch the oral arguments in any case that's come before us since the pandemic. That's when we started going online. And our opinions, of course, are public, also searchable, available online to anyone for free. It's quite a responsibility to suggest that in order to be an informed voter, you have to watch our oral arguments and read our opinions. So I think there are multiple ways for people to get information about candidates when it comes time for people to run for office. Making use of all the different ways to learn about our records, whether it's searching us on Google and looking at our campaign websites, looking at what organizations endorse us, looking at our responses to the various questionnaires that we fill out, and there's a judicial voter guide that the State Board of Elections has produced. There's a lot of ways to get information about us. But I also think that it's really important for justices to be in the community. And so even before I was running for office, I never turned down any request to come speak to a rotary club, an elementary school class, a church group, anyone who wanted to know about our court, about my job, how I approach my job, I was happy for those opportunities. And I certainly intend to continue that practice. So, you know, you can find my record online in terms of groups that I have spoken in front of, speeches that I've given. I think that being in community across the state, this is a very diverse state. It's a huge state, over seven million voters. It takes a long time to get from the western end to the eastern end. And people, in some senses, have very common issues, but there are also important regional differences. And there are differences in how people are living their lives in rural versus urban areas of the state. So I think as justices, it's really important that we understand as best we possibly can what different communities are facing and put ourselves out there. And so that's another way for voters to hold us accountable by reaching out, asking us to come speak, attending forums and events where we are speaking. And it's really valuable to me when people are willing to come and meet us, share with us what their concerns are. And I'll tell you there's two other ways that I have done that. So one is through a study that I participated in of the legal needs of North Carolinians in 2020. The results of that study are online. It's nclegalneeds.org. And we looked at what kind of legal issues are people facing and what are the resources available to meet them. And then that's the civil legal system. For the criminal justice system, I participated in a process that had public hearings over a period of a couple of years. We had stakeholder meetings where we convened district attorneys and public defenders and city council members and police chiefs and sheriffs, all sorts of folks who have some connection to the justice system to hear what their concerns were about guaranteeing public safety in this state and heard a lot from those convenings, everything from the importance of recognizing victims' rights to addressing gun violence, promoting gun safety. But I would say the number one issue I heard across the state was the importance of increasing access to mental health and substance abuse services for the people of the state. So, as one of the most important interventions to guarantee public safety. So those are examples of how I think being out in the community gives me an opportunity to learn about what people's views and what they're facing. And it also gives the public an opportunity to see me and to evaluate whether I am the kind of justice that they think should be on the court.

Last Thoughts & Where to Learn More

Amanda Benbow Lunn 32:22

Perfect. As we wrap up, do you have any last thoughts? Is there anything we haven't discussed that you would like voters to know or anything from our conversation that you'd like to expand upon or clarify?

Justice Anita Earls 32:33

I just want voters to know that my commitment has always been to equal justice under the law. That's why I was a civil rights attorney for 30 years. In that capacity, I worked in nonprofit settings. And just to make it concrete and give an example, when I was a voting rights attorney doing election protection work, and people would call a hotline because they were having trouble. They were showing up at the polling place and they weren't being given a ballot, or they didn't know which polling place they were supposed to go to, or they showed up at the polling place, their name wasn't on the rolls, and they're at the wrong place. I never once asked, are you a Democrat or a Republican? How are you gonna vote? My commitment was to making sure that every voter was able to cast a ballot and that ballot be counted equally. When I served on the state board of elections, I was appointed by a Democratic governor, but I applied our campaign finance laws and our election laws equally, no matter what the party of the individual involved happened to be. And I was part of a board that found that a Democratic governor had violated our campaign finance laws and find his campaign. So I think those are examples of a very nonpartisan record that I think has helped me perform that way as well on the bench. And I hope that people will support me. Obviously, my website is earlsforjustice.com. You can learn more about my background there. But I'm grateful for this opportunity and for folks listening and learning more about what our courts do and what my background is.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 34:01

Thank you so much, Justice Earls. I appreciate you taking the time out of your very busy schedule to chat with us and share a little bit more about our court systems and your platform. And I wish you the best of luck with your campaign.

Justice Anita Earls 34:13

Thank you.

Closing Reflections & Voting Info

Amanda Benbow Lunn 34:15

Democracy is built on participation. Politics can sometimes feel distant or abstract, but the decisions made by our elected officials at the county, state, and federal levels have a profound effect on the communities we call home and the way we live our lives. From the roads we drive on and the schools our children attend to public safety, parks and recreation, housing, health care, taxes, the economy, and the many other services and amenities that make up our communities. Government plays a role in shaping both our everyday experience and our future. That makes taking the time to understand the choices on your ballot and the people asking for your vote an important part of being an engaged member of your community. Early voting for the 2026 midterm election begins October 15th and runs through October 31st. In Southern Wake County, there will be early voting locations at the Hunt Center in Holly Springs, the Hilltop Needmore Town Park Clubhouse in Fuquay Varina, Beech Bluff County Park, and Southern Wake Tech Campus close by. Election Day is November 3rd. A general reminder that you will need a valid photo ID to vote. The regular voter registration deadline is October 9th, although you may still register when you vote during the early voting period. Please note that you cannot register to vote on Election Day itself, and that that day you will absolutely have to vote at your designated precinct location to have access to your full ballot. And because there are so many races and ballot measures this year, your ballot will likely be double-sided. It can be helpful to start on the back so that you don't accidentally overlook anything. You'll vote for the races that apply to your jurisdiction along with statewide amendments, and for Southern Wake County voters, local Wake County bond referenda. Voting is one of the ways we take part in the communities we share. You don't have to agree with your neighbors or even with the candidates you've heard here to recognize that our communities are shaped by the people who show up, ask questions, learn about the choices before them, and cast their ballots. So please take the time to get informed, make your voice heard, and encourage the people around you to do the same. Your vote matters. Your voice matters. And you absolutely matter, my friend. And with that, this episode of the NC Deep Dive has come to an end. Please feel free to check out this episode show notes at ncdeepdive.com for further information and relevant links for this candidate along with general election information. As always, if you have any topics or thoughts you'd like to share, you can find us on social media or email us at ncdeepdive at gmail.com. If you found value in this episode, I'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and share it so that others may more easily be informed. Please make sure to stay tuned for all the relevant candidate amendment and referenda episodes for the 2026 midterm election by visiting ncdeepdive.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, or wherever you currently listen to your podcast. Until next time, my friends, Nama ste: The Love and Light in Me sees and honors the Love and Light in You.