RALEIGH, N.C. — If judges sign off on Republican legislation that curtails the new governor’s control over state and local elections, future balloting could be wracked with confusion, unethical politicians could go unpunished, and campaign finance tricks could continue unabated, Democratic lawyers contend.

A three-judge panel of state trial judges on Thursday will hear arguments about whether it is constitutional for GOP legislators to end the century-old control governors had of overseeing elections now that a Democrat, Governor Roy Cooper, is in office.

The judges are looking at a law passed in April that takes away the governor’s authority to pick the majority of the five-member statewide elections board. That board selects the members of the three-member local elections boards.

GOP legislators want to divide the elections boards equally between Democrats and Republicans, with Cooper picking elections board members from lists of candidates compiled by the two parties.

ASSOCIATED PRESS