RALEIGH, N.C. — In a heated meeting punctuated by a student protest, the North Carolina State Board of Elections on Tuesday voted against including some Sunday voting opportunities and on-campus voting sites in the March primary election.

In mostly party-line votes, the board’s new Republican majority voted to approve early voting plans from counties where election boards were unable to reach a unanimous agreement.

This included voting against a proposal to include early voting sites at UNC Greensboro and North Carolina A&T State University, prompting a confrontation with students who had come in support of the sites.

The State Board of Elections also voted against including Sunday voting in six counties that had disagreed on the issue and cut a longtime early voting site at Western Carolina University.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the board was still voting on proposals from several other counties.

These types of disagreements are common, and state law has long required that if county boards can’t reach a unanimous decision, the state will have the final say. But in the wake of a massive restructuring of North Carolina’s election apparatus earlier this year — which flipped all boards to Republican control — new leadership may handle such disputes differently than in the past.

The counties at issue are Alamance, Brunswick, Columbus, Craven, Cumberland, Greene, Guilford, Harnett, Jackson, Madison, Pitt, and Wayne.

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