Mecklenburg ballot snafu prompts Trump tweet warning of ‘rigged election’
President Donald Trump weighed in Thursday on a glitch that left some Mecklenburg County voters receiving two absentee ballots this month.
“Just out: Some people in the Great State of North Carolina have been sent TWO BALLOTS. RIGGED ELECTION in waiting!” the president tweeted.
On Tuesday, the Observer reported that county election officials found that some ballots intended for voters in Matthews were mislabeled with the wrong voter names. They were shredded before being sent.
But in trying to correct it with a second set of mailing labels, some voters inadvertently got two of the same ballots.
Elections Director Michael Dickerson said the mix-up affected less than 500 voters.
There’s no chance that voters can vote twice. Each mailing label has a unique identifier that prohibits that. Voting more than once is a felony.
More than 837,000 N.C. voters had requested absentee ballots as of Thursday afternoon. That’s more than 12% of all registered voters.
“We are proud of the work our county boards of elections are doing under extremely difficult circumstances and with an exponential increase in by-mail voting,” state elections board director Karen Brinson Bell said in a statement. “We want to assure voters that the system is set up to ensure the election will not be affected and no one will be able to vote twice as a result of this incident.”
Attorney General Josh Stein also responded to Trump’s tweet.
“No, Mr. President,” he tweeted. “Our elections officials are drinking water out of a firehose. This mistake in Mecklenburg County affected only a small % voters, and there are protections to ensure no one can vote twice. Please stop spreading disinformation. Our democracy is too important.”
This story was originally published September 17, 2020 at 4:07 PM.
