Lawsuit demands easier vote-by-mail process in NC
A group of voters backed by Democratic legal groups sued North Carolina on Monday seeking to loosen rules around absentee mail-in ballots amid predictions that the coronavirus pandemic will make voting by mail a widespread practice.
They want the state to provide prepaid postage on all absentee ballots, change a requirement for two witnesses to sign a ballot, extend the deadline for receipt of ballots until nine days after Election Day and give voters a chance to fix signature discrepancies before election officials reject those ballots.
North Carolina’s state board of elections endorsed the first two provisions in a proposed list of election changes released in March.
“The current restrictions on mail ballots not only violate the state Constitution, but they also pose significant risks to voters’ health and safety, and, unless they are remedied, they could result in the disenfranchisement of an unprecedented number of North Carolinians,” said Marc Elias, a top Democratic elections attorney representing the challengers, in a statement.
Elias represented Democratic candidate Dan McCready in the state board’s hearing on election fraud in the 2018 election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District. The results of that election were never certified and a new election was ordered after elections officials found evidence of fraud connected to absentee mail-in ballots. Operatives paid by Republican candidate Mark Harris are accused of collecting the ballots and tampering with them.
Operative McCrae Dowless is facing perjury and obstruction of justice charges over actions in 2016 and 2018.
After that case, state lawmakers passed a bill that required stricter record-keeping of all absentee ballot requests and increased penalties for absentee ballot fraud. Some of those rules have been challenged in a lawsuit by the Right to Vote Foundation, which is involved the new complaint.
The new complaint does not seek to undo any of the substantial parts of that legislation.
The new lawsuit was filed in Wake County Superior Court with support from the Right to Vote Foundation and the National Redistricting Foundation, which is affiliated with the National Democratic Redistricting Committee led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
“This case could not be more urgent. The state must begin preparations now to ensure that the procedures necessary for increased vote at home and safe in person voting are in place for the citizens of North Carolina. The voters in this state must not be forced to choose between protecting the community’s health and their right to vote,” Holder said in a statement.
A spokesman for North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger, a Republican, accused the groups of trying to “taking a hatchet to elections’ confidence, security and validity.” North Carolina has no-excuse absentee voting, allowing any registered voter to request and receive a mail-in absentee ballot for any election in which absentee voting is allowed, according to the state board.
“Everyone needs to understand that these lawsuits are not about enabling voting for citizens; they’re about enabling the counting of votes so that Democrats win elections,” said Pat Ryan, a spokesman for Berger. “The future Eric Holder and his litigious liberals want is one in which some ballots are counted well after the election so suspiciously mismatched absentee signatures can be ‘fixed’ and shady groups can harvest ballots for Democrats from unsuspecting elderly voters.”
President Donald Trump has come out strongly against mail-in ballots even during the pandemic. Trump, who voted by mail in Florida, said voting by mail was a “terrible thing.”
”Now, mail ballots — they cheat. OK? People cheat. Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country, because they’re cheaters. They go and collect them. They’re fraudulent in many cases. You got to vote. And they should have voter ID, by the way. If you want to really do it right, you have voter ID,” Trump said at the White House on April 7.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections last month proposed 15 changes to state elections because of the pandemic, including making Election Day a holiday and allowing high school students to volunteer as poll workers. The board called for establishment of a fund to pay for postage for returned absentee ballots and for the reduction or elimination of the witness requirement.
Fewer than 5% of North Carolina voters mail in their ballots, but that number could jump to as high as 40% this year, the board’s executive director Karen Brinson Bell said, according to previous News & Observer reporting.
“We must act now to lift these burdensome restrictions so that North Carolina is appropriately prepared for the influx of absentee voting in November as our nation deals with the COVID-19 crisis,” J.B. Poersch of the Right to Vote Foundation said in a statement.
Such a large jump could require significant changes to where and how ballots are counted. Safety concerns about in-person voting could also require larger voting sites or social distancing at polling locations.
State lawmakers did not act on any of the proposed changes during their session last week.
In its complaint, the groups claim “the state is woefully underprepared for the rapid extension of absentee voters. ... North Carolina’s election officials continue to enforce unnecessary and burdensome mail ballot restrictions that threaten to disenfranchise many North Carolina voters, and are especially ill-suited to meet the unique challenges posed by the ongoing public health emergency.”
In the suit, the plaintiffs call for prepaid postage on absentee ballots and ballot request forms, citing the number of unemployed people in the state. One million people in the state have filed for unemployment during the coronavirus outbreak.
Further, they want to stop the need for two witnesses or a notary to verify the ballot. They want ballots received up to nine days after Election Day to be counted. That is the deadline for military overseas ballots.
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This story was originally published May 4, 2020 at 3:13 PM with the headline "Lawsuit demands easier vote-by-mail process in NC."
