Absentee voting was supposed to start in North Carolina two weeks ago. State law requires county elections boards to start mailing out requested absentee ballots 60 days prior to Election Day.
But the legal battle over whether to remove Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name from the North Carolina ballots kept that from happening.
On Aug. 23, Kennedy suspended his presidential campaign, endorsed Republican candidate Donald Trump and then sought removal from ballots in battleground states, including North Carolina.
The state’s Democratic-majority elections board refused to honor Kennedy’s request for removal because it came so close to the statutory start of absentee voting — this year, the start date was Sept. 6 — and because ballots had already been printed.
Ultimately, the conservative-heavy North Carolina Supreme Court sided with RFK Jr. and ordered new ballots to be printed without his name on them.
Reprinted ballots started going out last Friday, in compliance with the federal timeline for providing requested absentee ballots to military and overseas voters, which is 45 days prior to Election Day.
State elections director urges voters to have a plan
This Tuesday, county elections officials will start mailing out absentee ballots to all North Carolina voters who have requested them. According to state elections officials, more than 207,000 North Carolina voters already have requested absentee ballots for this year’s general election.
Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said voters in the state should have a plan for how they are going to cast their ballots, whether by absentee-by-mail, in-person early voting, or at a polling place on Election Day.
Brinson Bell, addressing reporters on a video call Monday, added that if a voter plans on submitting an absentee-by-mail ballot, they should get their request in and return it as soon as possible.
“The postal service is emphasizing that, we’re emphasizing that,” she added.
Oct. 29 is the deadline to request an absentee ballot for this year’s general election, but Brinson Bell warned that waiting until that late date “is going to be really hard on election officials to get that processed, back to the voter, and then for the voter to have sufficient time to return it.”
Voters may return absentee ballots — which require photo ID or a completed exception form — by mail or by delivering them in person to the voter’s county elections board office or at an early voting site. And state law allows the absentee ballots to be delivered by the voter or a close relative.
‘Suspicious mailings’ sent to elections officials
Meanwhile, the FBI and U.S. Postal Service are investigating what federal authorities call “a series of suspicious mailings sent to election officials in several states.”
A spokesman for the state elections board said an envelope containing a powdery substance had been addressed to his agency and was intercepted at a state mail servicing center last week.
The substance tested negative for hazardous materials, but state elections staff are now wearing protective gloves to handle mail.
“We’re not going to be intimidated by this,” Brinson Bell told reporters. “We’re going to do the core work, the very compass that drives us, and that is to ensure that every eligible voter is able to cast their ballot.”
And Brinson Bell sought to remind people — especially those behind such scare tactics as the suspicious mailings — that elections are administered largely by members of one’s community.
“They’re trying to intimidate their former high school teacher, or they are trying to make the work difficult for the same person that shops at the grocery store right beside them,” Brinson Bell said.
Early, in-person voting starts on Oct. 17.
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Publish date : 2024-09-23 07:22:00
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