The North Carolina State Board of Elections (SBE) approved guidelines for county boards on handling absentee ballots during a September 4 meeting, in the form of a numbered memo. It was a 3-2 party-line vote.
The new absentee ballot guidance
The SBE has not yet published the guidelines on its numbered memo page. A draft version of the document is, however, available on the board’s meeting document page. The guidelines in the memo are along the lines of regulations the board proposed in the spring.
(I spoke in favor of those regulations in a June 22 public hearing.)
Some of the pushback from Democratic members of the Board was over “non-curable deficiencies.” Those are problems that require county election officials to spoil the ballot and either issue a new one. If it is too close to election day, officials must contact the voter to tell them that they can vote in person on election day. The instructions include contacting the voter by “any telephone number or email address” if available, otherwise by mail.
Some non-curable deficiencies include:
- The inner container-return envelope is unsealed and is either not in the outer return envelope, or the outer return envelope is also open. If either envelope is sealed, there is no deficiency.
- The voter’s signature on the container-return envelope does not match the name of the voter who was issued the ballot.
- There is no printed witness name, or the name is unreadable. It is not considered a deficiency if officials can read the witness’s name from the signature.
- There is no witness signature.
Only a near relative or legal guardian can deliver your ballot
Board member Siobhan Millen said something curious during the meeting:
Sneaking in a whole new provision about if Aunt Betty brings in your absentee ballot, they’re going to spoil it if she’s not of close enough relation. Instead of it being vague like it is now, now [sic] the new rule that we’re just about to pass says spoil and reissue.
What makes it curious is that state election law is not vague at all; Aunt Betty cannot bring in your absentee ballot.
Article 20 of Chapter 163 of the General Statutes (GS 163‑231.(b)(1)) specifies that completed ballots can only be transmitted to county boards of elections by mail, by commercial courier service, or “delivered in person, by the voter or the voter’s near relative or verifiable legal guardian, to the county board.”
But what is a near relative?
Article 20 also helpfully specifies that in GS 163‑226.(f): “For the purpose of this Article, ‘near relative’ means spouse, brother, sister, parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, mother‑in‑law, father‑in‑law, daughter‑in‑law, son‑in‑law, stepparent, or stepchild.
The article also defines “verifiable legal guardian” as someone appointed by the state to serve as guardian for a minor or an adult found legally incompetent. Unlike many states, North Carolina allows the mentally incompetent to vote.
So, unless your Aunt Betty is your legal guardian, she cannot deliver your ballot.
The purpose behind the law is an attempt to ensure that only people who have the voter’s interests at heart, rather than the interests of political parties, candidates, or interest groups, can take possession of that voter’s ballot. In other words, it is a protection against ballot harvesting, the kind of election fraud that led the SBE to overturn the 2018 9th District congressional race.
There is an exception to the law. After a 2022 court ruling, anyone may take possession of a disabled person’s ballot.
