‘Stop this chaos,’ Republicans urge NC elections board, as judge supports ballot rules

A state judge refused Friday morning to issue a temporary stay that would prevent his acceptance of a settlement agreement that changes mailed-in ballot rules in the middle of the election.

Wake County Superior Court Judge Bryan Collins denied the request less than 24 hours after a ruling late Thursday from the N.C. Court of Appeals that prevents the settlement from moving forward regardless of Collins’ decision.

The state Court of Appeals ruling is temporary, until appeals judges can hear arguments next week.

Alexander Peters, attorney for the N.C. Department of Justice, told Collins that an estimated 10,000 returned ballots have problems with their envelopes that need to be corrected and that elections boards can’t contact voters about them until the court finalizes the agreement.

This leaves 10,000 ballots in limbo.

The Board of Elections announced the changes to the rules governing mailed-in ballots in late September as part of an agreement to settle a lawsuit brought by a political group representing retirees. Collins, who was overseeing the lawsuit, accepted the agreement on Oct. 2, even though the changes to ballots rules differed from what lawmakers put in place earlier this year.

The settlement extended the number of days that absentee ballots could be collected following the election. It allowed voters to drop off mailed-in ballots at collection boxes at both the county board of elections offices and early-voting sites. And it allowed absentee ballots to be collected without a witness signature if the voter signed an affidavit testifying that it was their ballot.

Republicans objected, and now both state, federal and appeals court judges are reviewing three simultaneous lawsuits regarding the rules, though Collins’ ruling Friday may have ended his involvement in the cases.

In response to that ruling, the Republicans who head the N.C. Senate Elections Committee put out a joint statement directed at the Board of Elections.

“For the sake of election integrity, just keep the election rules as they existed before voting started and stop this chaos,” Warren Daniel, Ralph Hise and Paul Newton wrote.

Federal judge says witness policy went too far

U.S. District Court Judge William Osteen is presiding over two of the lawsuits and said in court documents earlier this week that his own order from August was misused and misinterpreted to get Collins to accept the settlement.

In August, Osteen said the board of elections had no uniform process for dealing with mailed-in ballots with errors on envelopes and that it needed one.

But Osteen said he did not mean the board could bypass election rules and drop the witness requirement. He further chastised the board, saying the settlement agreement violated the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which gives only the legislature the right to set election rules.

Osteen ordered the board of elections to stop accepting ballots without witness signatures but said he did not have authority to address the other two portions of the settlement agreement. As of 5 a.m. Friday, more than 918,000 North Carolinians had cast ballots, and more than 556,000 of those ballots had been mailed.

Peters tried Friday to get Collins to modify his order to match Osteen’s, but with the case before the appeals court Collins refused.

Senate Leader Phil Berger, House Speaker Tim Moore, the N.C. Republican Party and the Trump campaign aren’t arguing for the collection box to be stopped, but they do want stop the extension on how long the board can accept mailed-in ballots. Under the settlement agreement, mailed-in ballots can be accepted through Nov. 12 as long as they are postmarked by Nov. 3, Election Day.

When Collins opened court Friday morning he asked attorneys if he even needed to hear the case because of the Court of Appeals order.

Attorneys asked him to consider a stay of his order through the entirety of the Court of Appeals hearing.

This story was originally published October 16, 2020 at 11:32 AM with the headline "‘Stop this chaos,’ Republicans urge NC elections board, as judge supports ballot rules."