North Carolina election board again makes it harder to vote by mail

The GOP-controlled North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) approved new permanent rules Monday that will make it more difficult for voters to cast their ballots by mail and ensure that they are counted. The change is just the latest attack on voting since Republicans took control of the board last year.

The new rules, which passed in a 3-2 vote along party lines, will require voters to submit written attestations to remedy several types of technical envelope “irregularities” with their mail ballots. Previously, ballots with these irregularities were just counted and voters did not need to take any additional action.

Democrats on the NCSBE argued the new rules will create more unnecessary hurdles for voters and leave voters with disabilities vulnerable to disenfranchisement. 

They aren’t the only changes the GOP-controlled board will be implementing for the November midterms. Just last week, the board approved a controversial rule that lowers the threshold for rejecting the form voters submit when they don’t have photo ID — a move that Democrats said makes it easier for Republicans to toss out ballots.

Shortly before Monday’s vote, Jeff Carmon, one of two Democrats on the board, said he had “significant concerns” that the changes would confuse voters and rejected Republican assurances that voters would receive clear instructions about the changes.

“Everyone has not been blessed with the amount of education that we have,” Carmon said. “I would say the instructions are confusing.”

Siobhan O’Duffy Millen, another Democrat on the NCSBE, said the board has repeatedly changed the mail ballot return envelope instructions and some voters are struggling to keep up.

“If they don’t understand which envelope they were supposed to put it in, but they put it in a sealed envelope, I think it’s overly fastidious to throw their ballot out,” Millen said. “And I think we’re going to lose perfectly sound ballots due to over-fussiness.” 

Republican members of the board did not share Democrats’ concerns. 

Angela Hawkins, a GOP member, told Democrats: “County boards are more than happy to help voters get it right.”

And Republican board member Francis De Luca opined that the best solution to any potential confusion would be to avoid mail voting. 

“The most secure and secret way of doing it is to vote on Election Day,” De Luca said. “Then you don’t have to worry about all this other stuff.”

Voting advocates have urged the board not to pass the new rules, arguing they would make voting more difficult for residents who rely on mail voting.

“It’s especially concerning that these new rules are being considered so close to a major election, without enough time to fully inform the public about significant changes to the voting process,” Sailor Jones, state director of Common Cause North Carolina, said in a statement when the board began considering the changes.