A ‘partisan’ decision at the NC Supreme Court will delay voters’ ability to vote by mail

Your North Carolina absentee ballot will be delayed, possibly by weeks, because of a NC Supreme Court decision that many are calling partisan in nature.

Expecting to receive your absentee ballot this week? It’s gonna be delayed.

North Carolina mails its ballots out 60 days before the election, and the state’s deadline to do this is Sept. 6.

Want to know how to do vote-by-mail in North Carolina? Here’s a step-by-step guide. 

However, on Friday, the NC Court of Appeals ordered the state to not send out ballots with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s name on them after the third-party presidential candidate sued to get his name off the ballot.

Kennedy suspended his campaign last month, but state election officials said he didn’t do it in time to have his name removed without a significant cost—in time and money—to the state, which requires by law that absentee ballots go out at least 60 days before the election, or Sept. 6.

The state will clearly not make that deadline. The federal deadline for sending absentee ballots to military and overseas residents is Sept. 21. Officials say the move will also cost the state potentially $1 million to reprint and code the ballots.

The NC Supreme Court, which is dominated by Republican judges, followed up Monday, ordering that new ballots not bearing RFK Jr.’s name must be printed and distributed to absentee voters.

It’s likely that including Kennedy’s name on the ballot would hurt Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s chances of winning North Carolina. Kennedy fought to get on the ballot this year in North Carolina and other battleground states, and is now fighting to get off it to boost Trump.

“We acknowledge that expediting the process of printing new ballots will require considerable time and effort by our election officials and significant expense to the state,” Justice Trey Allen wrote for the majority. “But that is a price the North Carolina Constitution expects us to incur to protect voters’ fundamental right to vote their conscience and have that vote count.”

Justice Allison Riggs wrote in dissent that the decision could cost the state up to a month of absentee ballot voting time, which could have a significant impact for military personnel and people overseas.

The Supreme Court’s 4-3 ruling fell mostly on along party lines. Four of the five Republican judges said the ballots must be reprinted.

ICYMI: 4 of the 7 justices on the NC Supreme Court are all-in for helping Republicans in this year’s election. #ncpol https://t.co/Bq26Asu9Eb

— Billy Corriher (@BillyCorriher) September 10, 2024

While we don’t know when your ballot will arrive, we do know that there’s still time to request absentee ballots — you have until 5 p.m. on Oct. 29.  You can request it online or download the form and bring it to your county board of elections. There is an English and a Spanish version of the form.