Facing a flood of absentee ballots, NC makes it easier to vote early or by mail
Like nearly 27,000 other North Carolina voters, Charlotte Republican Robert Connery mailed in an absentee ballot for this year’s March primary. And like more than 2,800 other ballots, it was rejected.
Election officials say he forgot to sign it.
In the 2016 and 2018 general elections as well as this spring’s primary, nearly 16,000 absentee ballots were rejected in North Carolina for missing signatures, deadlines or other required information, according to an Observer analysis of data from the N.C. State Board of Elections. In close races that could make a difference.
On Friday hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots will go in the mail as the state becomes the first to start voting for the November election. Election officials are braced for a record number of mail-in votes. More than 618,000 absentee requests had been received through Wednesday, and election officials expect up to 10 times as many as usual to be cast this year.
Officials say new protocols should reduce the number of absentee ballots that aren’t counted. That’s one of several changes designed to facilitate voting during the pandemic.
A new portal on the state Board of Elections web site allows voters to request an absentee ballot online. There also will be more early-voting hours. And to manage the expected flood of mail-in ballots, election officials will start tabulating them earlier than ever, on Sept. 29.
“There are more options and more flexibility for voters,” said political scientist Michael Bitzer of Catawba College. “That is the reality of a highly engaged electorate in the midst of a pandemic.”
More early-voting options
Those options include more hours and more places to vote early.
Mecklenburg County is increasing the number of early voting sites by half, to 33. They’ll include large venues such as Bank of America Stadium, Spectrum Center and Bojangles Arena.
Wake County is using more community college and community center gyms. Wake will have 50% more hours to early vote than in 2016, according to Gerry Cohen, a county elections board member. It also will have more than double the number of early voting poll workers than four years ago.
A third of all the state’s absentee ballot requests have come from Wake and Mecklenburg, the two largest counties.
As of Tuesday, 53% percent of the requests came from Democrats, Bitzer said, compared with 31% from unaffiliated voters and 16% from Republicans. While Republican requests were seven times ahead of 2016, he said, those from unaffiliated voters were up 17 times and from Democrats, 22 times.
While white voters accounted for 84% of the returned and accepted absentee ballots in 2016, so far they’ve accounted for 69% of requests. Eighteen percent of this year’s requests came from Black voters; in 2016 it was 10%.
Voters have until Oct. 27 to request a mail-in ballot, though they’re being encouraged to do it earlier. Ballots can be mailed back or dropped off at the county board of elections or an early voting site.
Because voters will have to sign paperwork when dropping off a ballot, they may have to wait in line at those sites with early voters. Officials say they’re trying to arrange separate lines for people dropping off ballots.
“We’re encouraging people to send them back early,” said Michael Dickerson, Mecklenburg’s elections director.
Missing signatures
Connery and his wife Elizabeth have voted absentee for the past several elections. He was surprised to learn that their ballots weren’t counted for the primary.
“That’s hard for me to believe that we did not sign those,” said 82-year-old Connery. “We’ll be careful next time.”
Charlotte Democrat Patricia Graham, 71, also forgot to sign her absentee ballot, according to election officials. They said her ballot arrived on primary Election Day in March.
“This is really a surprise to me that my ballot wasn’t counted,” Graham told the Observer this week.
Theirs were among almost 1,500 N.C. ballots rejected this spring for missing the voter’s signature. An additional 259 were rejected for incomplete witness information; 756 came in after the deadline.
Kristin Mavromatis, public information manager for the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections, said Connery was sent a replacement ballot, though he doesn’t recall receiving it. She said Graham’s ballot arrived too late to send a replacement.
Under a new state policy, if an absentee ballot arrives with a missing signature or other problem, election officials have one business day to notify the voter about the problem. If the voter’s signature is missing, officials have to send the voter an affidavit to attest that it’s their ballot. If it’s another problem, like incomplete witness information, the voter would get a new ballot.
They’d also be reminded of early voting and Election Day options.
If a flawed absentee ballot arrives Oct. 30 or later, officials would call or email the voter and tell them how to vote on Election Day. Absentee ballots will be counted if they’re postmarked by 5 p.m. on Election Day and arrive by Nov. 6.
This story was originally published September 3, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
