According to a few mainstream media reports, the North Carolina State Board of Elections held a meeting on Tuesday, September 4, and by a three-member Democratic majority, approved adding more voting locations or hours to early voting sites in Wake and several other counties across the state.
What has not been reported was that during the same meeting the Board announced that they had changed the deadline to transmit mail-in absentee ballots from 60 days prior to the election to 45 days prior to the election. These absentee ballots were scheduled to begin to be mailed out on September 7th. At this time the State Board has not “corrected” their website, here is the link to the State Board of Elections website elections calendar. The deadline of 60 days prior to a general election is also clearly stated on the State Board’s Military and Absentee Voting by Mail website page.
There was a delay in mail-in absentee ballot delivery in 2010 also. Here is my blog from September 8, 2010 reporting on absentee voting delayed. As in 2010, I submit that this action will impact and diminish the military vote.
Seeing that the Military Voter Project, in an August article, has already painted a bleak picture in projecting Military voter turnout in the 2012 General Election, North Carolina’s move to delay absentee ballot delivery can only make things worse. The Military Voter Project article even uses North Carolina as an example of a state with low absentee ballot request rates for military voters. So what is the State Board of Elections thinking?
At the September 4 meeting, the State Board Chairman, Larry Leake, said they will make every effort to comply with the 60 day rule and stated that ballots should be available on or before September 21, 2012.
Civitas thought voters should be given a better idea as to when to expect the ballots they request; so we made calls to all 100 counties yesterday and this morning. This spreadsheet will give you an idea as to where your county is in the mail-in absentee balloting process.
We found that 46 counties have not received their ballots from the printers yet. Of the counties that have begun the process only 15 of them mailed ballots out on or before the 60 day deadline and 39 counties have just begun the process this week.
Of special note, North Carolina’s largest counties, Mecklenburg and Wake do not plan to mail their ballots until September 21 and 22 respectively. And, Cumberland County, a county with many military voters, said that they had their ballots, but did not intend to mail them until next week. Several of the counties suggested that the delay was due to the Democratic Convention – but seeing that 15 counties had their ballots in hand and were mailing them on Friday – this excuse didn’t hold water.
Where is the outrage for mail-in absentee voting? Ronald Penny State Board of Elections member, asserted that 15 early voting sites in Wake County was not enough and is quoted in this article saying that the Wake County plan “puts an undue burden on my ability to vote.” Mr. Penny even said he was “still struggling with my right to suffrage.”
So now Wake County has 16 early voting sites instead of 15. How many early voting sites will it take to make the left happy? I know, I know, until there is unlimited voting anywhere anyone wants to vote – liberals will not be happy. Here’s to chaos.
Here’s the deal – largely because of divided precincts in redistricting and the sheet number of house, senate and congressional district a county llike Wake has 100+ ballot styles all if which have to be printed and available to mailout. With the D convention nomination on day 62 it was really impossible for the large counties to be ready at the same time as small ones with one or two ballot styles. So there is a legitimate reason for some delay in the major counties.
Now as far as a county that has their ballots and hasn’t sent them our – if true I have no excuse for that
Convention scheduling is largely dictated by the date of the Olympics, with the party out if power going first. In 2016 the Rio Olympics are three weeks later than this year. Hopefully the conventions will be pre- Olympics
Gerry – you evidently did not look at the spreadsheet I included in my post. Large and small counties have already mailed out absentee ballots. Large and small counties stated that they had just had their ballots approved by the state board of elections and are hoping they are delivered soon. George Gilbert, Director, Guilford County Board of Elections stated in an affidavit in 2011 that he expected as many as 128 ballot styles this year and yet Guilford County reported to us that they had begun to mail their absentee ballots on September 7 (“the deadline”).
Is there something in our election law about the conventions and printing ballots? Where is the citation that requires the boards of elections to wait until after the convention to print the ballots? Evidently, not all counties waited because they were adhering to the law and mailing absentee ballots on the September 7. And, for the state board to mention the change as an aside in a meeting is absurd.
I worked for Wake County Board of Elections for more than seven years and there were many elections with little time to print ballots. Commercial Printing was the printer used by Wake County to print ballots during that time and in a crunch would always print enough ballots to mail the absentee ballots – on time or at least within a day or two. This year (as in 2010), they are only aiming for the mandatory federal deadline (September 22, 2012) by which absentee ballots must be initially mailed to UOCAVA voters.
I appreciate your defense of a portion of a law that was supposed to aide military voters – but this part of the law seems like it is routinely ignored by the state board and numerous counties. It appears to be just another law that is good in theory (and in stump speeches) but in practice makes no difference.
Susan, thanks for your comment back and I should have read your spreadsheet more closely — the issue relating to the conventions is that until they happened the presidential nominations were not official. If, for example, the Ds had dropped Biden for H Clinton at the last minute obviously any printing would have had to be scrapped. Lucky for the local boards this did not happen. In any case, NC under a 2011 state law is allowing ballots to be sent and received as email attachments much of the snail mail float is gone — 51% of the military and 86% of the overseas civilians have requested their ballots that was as of Wednesday http://ncbilldrafting.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/email-ballots-for-military-and-overseas-voters-wildly-popular/ Let’s hope that helps
“that way as of Wednesday” not “that was as of Wednesday”
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P.S My apologies for getting off-topic but I had to ask!