Record Number Of Absentee Ballots In NC: Tracking Trends And Safety Concerns

In-person early voting begins on October 15th in North Carolina but casting ballots by mail is well underway. This year, with concerns about contracting COVID-19 and the prospect of long waits on election day, there's been a historic rise in the numbers of absentee by mail ballots being requested. As of this week, it's just over one million — more than 12 times what they were in 2016.

WFDD's David Ford spoke with Michael Bitzer, a political scientist who writes for the blog Old North State Politics.

Interview Highlights

On processing absentee by mail ballots:

What North Carolina does is when they receive a ballot and it is accepted, they go ahead and process it, basically scan the ballot. But no tabulation, meaning no count of how the voter voted, can be done until the polls close on November 3rd. So traditionally, we close the polls here in North Carolina about 7:30 on election night. If you watch the state board of elections website, you will see probably this year a massive number of votes that have been counted, released shortly after the polls close. Those are absentee by mail and the early in-person absentee one-stop votes. So, you know, if we're predicting anywhere from 70 to 80 percent of the total ballots cast that are coming early, either by mail or in person, we could see a huge number of votes posted within probably 30 minutes to an hour of the polls closing. 

On mail-in ballot myths:

I think the biggest one right now has been this term, "rejected ballots." And nowhere in the State Board of Elections policy will you see the term that a ballot has been rejected if the voter did not properly fill it out. The hurdle now has even been decreased even more. Meaning that if a voter fails to fill out the witness section — name, address, signature — they will be sent a curing certification, which means they don't have to revote — they don't have to have a second ballot sent to them — they just have to attest that, yes, this person did witness me fill out my ballot. Mail it back. And that's taking care of. 

On the readiness of the U.S. Postal Service: 

I think if North Carolina voters who are using absentee by mail ballots already have their minds made up in terms of who they're going to vote for, get it in and get it in early. If they feel comfortable, they could hand deliver their ballots back. And so that would assure them that, yes, I handed it to a responsible election official. I know that my ballot has been delivered if there are concerns about the mail. I'm hearing random anecdotes about, I put in my request and I still haven't gotten my ballot yet. What's going on? I just think the overload of the postal system is indeed trying to handle this to the best of their abilities. 

Editor's Note: This transcript was lightly edited for clarity.