North Carolina absentee ballot restrictions will remain in effect for midterms, judge rules

In a blow to voters, North Carolina’s restrictive absentee ballot rules will remain in place for the midterms, a federal judge ruled Monday.

North Carolina enacted the new ballot rules, which established new signature matching and envelope sealing requirements, the same day mail voting began. More than 30,000 absentee ballot votes have been cast so far across the state. Ballots are already being rejected because of the state’s new envelope sealing rule, according to multiple county board members.

U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Schroeder rejected pleas from voting rights groups and individual voters* seeking to overturn the measure.

Schroeder determined that changing the rules after absentee and early voting had already begun would run afoul of the Supreme Court’s Purcell principle against last-minute changes to election rules. He also faulted the plaintiffs for waiting to bring their challenge and concluded they had not made the required “clear showing” that they were likely to succeed on their claims.

“The Supreme Court has repeatedly admonished lower courts that they ‘should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election.’ Here, ‘the election is not merely upcoming; it has already started,’” Schroeder wrote. “Indeed, early voting is underway. Accordingly, ‘the Purcell principle applies with even greater force here.’”

The North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans, with other pro-voting groups and individual voters, had argued that the new rules would disenfranchise eligible voters. The biggest obstacle, they argued, was a new requirement that voters seal an inner envelope tucked within what one voter described to Democracy Docket as “an eighth of an inch difference” from the outside envelope.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) and North Carolina Republicans joined the State Board of Elections to defend the rules they called “tiny provisions” meant to secure election integrity.

However, in Guilford County, upwards of 2% of all ballots received over the past three weeks have been thrown out because voters did not properly seal the inner envelope, according to election board member Carolyn Bunker.

The same is true for Wake County, where election board member Gerry Cohen shared that his counts found a rejection rate greater than 2.5%, with 40 ballots discarded for lacking an inner envelope seal.

*The Elias Law Group (ELG) represents the plaintiffs in this case. ELG Firm Chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.