North Carolina will start mailing absentee ballots late subsequent week after a lawsuit from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delayed their distribution.
On Friday, the North Carolina State Board of Elections introduced that every one 100 counties should ship ballots to eligible navy and abroad residents on Sept. 20. Ballots might be despatched out by Sept. 24 for all different voters who’ve requested ballots by mail.
“This schedule is only possible because of the hard work of elections professionals across this state that will continue throughout the next week,” stated Karen Brinson Bell, govt director of the State Board of Elections. “Because of them, we expect to meet the federal deadline for ballot delivery, and North Carolinians can finally start voting in this important election.”
The Tar Heel state was poised to ship ballots out on Sept. 6 earlier than the previous presidential candidate efficiently sued to get his identify off of the November poll after dropping out of the competition. This ruling pressured state election officers to scramble and reprint the ballots.
As of Thursday, greater than 166,000 North Carolina voters, together with greater than 13,600 navy and abroad voters, had requested ballots. Preliminary estimates present the reprint effort value the state not less than $373,000.
The election physique stated it would prioritize requested ballots for navy and abroad voters as a consequence of it solely making up about 8 p.c of absentee requests. State Board workers additionally organized on-demand poll printers to be positioned all through the state to make sure ballots are printed earlier than the Sept. 20 deadline.
“This plan allows time for the much larger orders of absentee ballots for all other voters to be printed and delivered to the county boards in time for counties to prepare their outgoing absentee ballot packages for mailing on Sept. 24,” the NCSBE launch reads.
