September 14, 2024. Following a delay in the mailing of North Carolina absentee ballots due to back-and-forth rulings regarding Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his We the People Party, they now have a date for when they will go out — one that will meet the federal deadline.
According to the North Carolina State Board of Elections, absentee ballots will go out to military and overseas voters on Sept. 20. They will be mailed to all other voters who requested them on Sept. 24. The state board says this date includes those who use the Visually Impaired Portal to request and return ballots.
Federal law requires that ballots be distributed to voters under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act by the 45th day before the election, which this year would be Sept. 21.
Ballots were ready to be sent out on Sept. 6, the deadline under state law for sending out absentee ballots. But rulings by the North Carolina Court of Appeals as well as the state Supreme Court required the removal of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name from the ballot, delaying the process.
Along with state staff, boards of election in all 100 counties as well as voting system and printing vendors have worked to remove the We the People ticket from ballots and have “worked to devise contingency plans to ensure that ballots could be delivered as soon as practicable,” the state board said in a release.
“Due to the timelines for the printing, delivery and assembly of all absentee ballots in every county, the State Board concluded that the only way to meet the federal deadline for military and overseas citizens was to establish separate dates for distributing absentee ballots,” the release said.
According to the state, over 166,00 voters have requested ballots in North Carolina, including more than 13,600 military and overseas voters, or about 8% of the absentee requests. Election officials said they’ll focus on that smaller group of ballots first.
“This schedule is only possible because of the hard work of elections professionals across this state that will continue throughout the next week,” said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections, in the release. “Because of them, we expect to meet the federal deadline for ballot delivery, and North Carolinians can finally start voting in this important election.”
Any voter registered in North Carolina can vote by mail. The deadline to request an absentee ballot is Oct. 29. However, election officials encourage people to ask for their ballots soon so they can be returned to their respective county board of election by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 5.
Author: Hannah Leyva
Source: Fox 8 – Your Local Election HQ
The original article can be found here.
