Mail in voting is on hold in North Carolina following a state court decision. North Carolina Supreme Court ordered state elections officials to remove Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from ballots that had already been printed delaying the process for mailing the ballots out to voters.
The order states “the elections process should ensure that voters are presented with accurate information regarding the candidates running for an elected office.”
The decision leaves board of elections offices in limbo while they wait for direction from the state. At Mecklenburg County Board of Elections, thousands of ballots that were stuffed in envelopes are secured in a closet.
“We were given a pause to hold off,” Mecklenburg County Board of Elections Director Michael Dickerson said. “Don’t do anything yet.”
Dickerson says his office has the technology to reprint ballots in house, for about $20,000.
“It’s taking the old one out, destroying that and putting new one in, going all through that process,” Dickerson said. “We’re just waiting for the state to give us the go ahead to start printing and get going.”
State officials say more than 146,000 voters had requested absentee ballots including nearly 13,000 military and overseas voters. Right now, the majority of voters who requested ballots are registered as democrats.
Hasan Crockett, Political Science Professor at Livingstone College says Kennedy off the ballot could mean more votes for Trump.
“His strategy was to take his name off the ballot in the battleground states. So he tried it in Michigan, but the High Court in Michigan said that his name has to stay on the ballot,” Crockett said. “The conventional wisdom is that since he endorsed Trump, those votes will go over to Trump.”
The delay in mailing ballots also means a shorter window for voting. Bob Phillips from Common Cause North Carolina says this decision could be harmful.
“Is this really a fair decision?,” Phillips asked. “I think that when you have already 2.9 million ballots that had been printed, and it’s going to now take three weeks to reprint ballots will cost about $1 million, and the counties are going to have to bear that cost individually, it does not look good.”
The exact date when each county will send out ballots is still unclear. Regardless of when ballots hit mailboxes, all voters all still required to have their ballots back to the BOE by election day to be counted.
“It’s just another challenge. We can handle this challenge. We can. We can get through this,” Dickerson said.
The federal government requires states to mail out ballots to military and overseas voters at least 45 days before the election, which would be September 21st. The state board of elections says it is prepared to apply for a waiver if all 100 counties don’t have new ballots printed by that date.
Voters can request ballots until October 29th.