If you are one of the over 130,000 North Carolina voters who requested an absentee ballot, you may have been expecting to receive it in the mail this week.
However, due to a lawsuit involving third-party presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the absentee ballot period has been delayed. Here’s what you need to know.
When were absentee ballots supposed to go out?
The state’s deadline for mailing absentee ballots is Sept. 6. County boards of elections across the state had prepared thousands of different ballot styles and were ready to send them on Friday morning.
With ballots being mailed out 60 days before the election, North Carolina has one of the longest mail-in voting periods in the country.
Why was ballot mailing delayed?
The N.C. Court of Appeals ordered the state to halt ballot mailing Friday after Kennedy sued to get his name off the ballot.
After trying to gain ballot access in North Carolina for months — and defending his right to do so in court, Kennedy suspended his campaign last month and endorsed former President Donald Trump.
He then sought to have his name removed from the state’s ballots, but his request was initially denied by the State Board of Elections.
In a party-line vote, the board’s Democratic majority decided that it would have been impractical to remove him at that point, since most absentee ballots had already been printed and reprinting them would force the state to miss its Sept. 6 deadline — not to mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars it would cost to reprint all of the ballots.
Kennedy sued shortly after the board’s decision. A Wake County Superior Court judge denied his request to be removed from the ballot, but granted him a 24-hour stay of her decision so he could appeal.
On Friday, the Court of Appeals sided with Kennedy and directed the state to not send out ballots with his name on them.
When can I expect to receive my absentee ballot?
That depends on a few factors.
If the board does reprint all of the absentee ballots without Kennedy’s name, executive director Karen Brinson Bell estimated the process could take about two weeks.
County election officials have already been instructed to begin coding new ballots without Kennedy’s name on them, while holding on to all of the previously-printed ballots as well.
However, the board has appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court and asked them to allow ballots to be sent out immediately without changes. The state’s lawyers have requested an expedited decision from the high court.
Regardless of further legal action, there is a federal deadline for sending out absentee ballots that the state must follow.
That deadline is Sept. 21.
In court on Thursday, lawyers for the state expressed concerns that they may even miss the federal deadline if forced to reprint ballots.
Can I still request an absentee ballot?
Yes.
Voters can request absentee ballots until 5 p.m. on Oct. 29.
All absentee ballots must be returned by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day, which is Nov. 5.
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