This is a warning. This is an alarm. This is us, jumping up and down and waving our arms to get everybody’s attention.

Because when the NC GOP — long known for chicanery that includes drawing illegal districts, suppressing voters and other crimes against free and fair elections — starts making big moves this close to Election Day — early voting starts in two weeks! — something is afoot.

People need to know that the two Republican members of the NC Board of Elections resigned after a settlement — which they signed off on in a unanimous vote — over a lawsuit on mail-in voting.

The details are important, but that’s not the point here.

House Speaker Tim Moore and other members of Republican leadership decried this settlement immediately. The board members, Ken Raymond and David Black, resigned after a phone call from state GOP lawyers.

Two names for their replacements surfaced immediately. Nominated for Raymond’s seat is Donald van Der Vaart, an oil executive who was once the state environmental quality secretary.

The other is Dr. Trudy Wade. She is one of ours — former Guilford County commissioner, former Greensboro City Council member (District 5) and former state senator (District 27).

Dig through our archives and you’ll find numerous examples of Wade working to manipulate election results, mostly by illegal redistricting schemes in the city and county. She lost her seat in 2018 after running on fears of the “migrant caravan” supposedly heading to our border.

Hewing to Trump’s party line didn’t help her out against Michael Garrett, but she’s still on the team and is about to be named to the board of elections in a purple state just a couple weeks before voting begins.

We’ve been around long enough to remember, too, when Wade lost her county commission seat in 2004 to John Parks. She immediately filed a lawsuit against the results, and refused to vacate her seat for months.

We already know that’s what Trump plans to do on election night. How many candidates in our state elections are planning on doing the same thing?

And how will Trudy Wade try to help them?

Wade has already attempted several times to make a mockery of our electoral process. By nominating her for this position, the state GOP has revealed its plan to contest the results of the 2020 election.

And about the only thing they won’t be able to argue with is a landslide.

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