NORTH CAROLINA — After recent court rulings delayed the mailing of absentee ballots statewide, new dates have been finalized for when mail-in ballots will go out to voters.
READ MORE: State Supreme Court rules RFK Jr.’s name should be removed from NC ballots
The North Carolina State Board of Elections released Friday it will meet the Sept. 21 federal deadline to ensure military and overseas citizens will receive their absentee ballots. Ballots will be sent on Sept. 20.
All other voters that have requested absentee ballots will have theirs mailed Sept. 24.
“Due to the timelines for the printing, delivery, and assembly of all absentee ballots in every county, the State Board concluded that the only way to meet the federal deadline for military and overseas citizens was to establish separate dates for distributing absentee ballots,” a press release from the state board noted.
Ballots were being prepared earlier this month to send out by Sept. 6, the North Carolina deadline according to state statute, which requires ballots be mailed 60 days before Election Day this year. The federal law is 45 days from Election Day for military and overseas voters.
However, the state deadline was paused due to the North Carolina Supreme Court holding up an Appeals Court ruling that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Nicole Shanahan’s names should be removed from the presidential category.
RFK Jr. sued the state board of elections, after it voted 3-2 against removing his name per his request to be withdrawn from the ballot on Aug. 27. Kennedy announced his departure from the race on Aug. 23 nationwide and publicly endorsed Trump; he said he would request his name be removed from ballots only from battleground states, including North Carolina.
Kennedy sought to get onto the North Carolina ballot via his We the People Party, which voted Aug. 28 to remove its candidates. The state board held an emergency meeting on Aug. 29 to take up the issue, with the Democratic-leaning board essentially finding the request impractical; the board had already begun printing 2.9 million ballots.
Elections board director Karen Brinson Bell estimated it would collectively cost North Carolina’s 100 county boards hundreds of thousands of dollars to reprint.
In New Hanover County — the 11th most populous in the state — it will be more than $1,100. However, prices escalate in larger populated areas, such as $55,100 in Durham County and $300,000 in Wake County, which have the most registered voters in North Carolina.
RFK appealed a trial court judge’s ruling to keep his name on the ballot. The Appeals Court ruled next day, Sept. 6, that the state elections board would be required to strike the party and candidate names and reprint ballots. It declared the move interfered with voter integrity, also appealed by the state board of elections.
However, the Supreme Court concurred in its 4-3 ruling — one Republican and two Democratic justices dissented. Republican Justice Trey Allen wrote in the order that keeping Kennedy on the ballot “could disenfranchise countless voters who mistakenly believe that plaintiff remains a candidate for office.” It added the trial court did not appropriately weigh its decision.
The price paid to reprint the ballots, the order noted, was worth voter integrity:
“To protect this important right, the elections process should ensure that voters are presented with accurate information regarding the candidates running for an elected office. Where a ballot contains misleading information or inaccurately lists the candidates, it risks interfering with the right to vote according to one’s conscience.”
Since the ruling, the state board has reconfigured 2,400 various ballot designs and began recoding election machines.
As of Thursday, over 166,000 voters — military and overseas voters make up 8% — have requested ballots statewide.
According to the state board, it also has “special on-demand ballot printers” located throughout the state, ready to help fulfill orders for military and overseas citizen ballots if the county boards’ contracted vendors cannot meet the Sept. 20 deadline.
“This schedule is only possible because of the hard work of elections professionals across this state that will continue throughout the next week,” Brinson Bell said in a press release. “Because of them, we expect to meet the federal deadline for ballot delivery, and North Carolinians can finally start voting in this important election.”
Absentee ballots can be requested through Oct. 29 and must be returned by 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 5.
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