What North Carolinians Need To Know About Absentee By Mail Voting

This year many North Carolinians will cast their ballot through what's called absentee by mail voting, in order to avoid lines at the polls and potential exposure to COVID-19.

WFDD's Bethany Chafin spoke with Pat Gannon of the State Board of Elections to find out what voters need to know and how the state is ensuring a safe and secure election. 

Interview Highlights

On how the process of absentee by mail voting works:

Any registered voter can request an absentee ballot by mail. You don't need an excuse. You don't need to be ill. You don't need any special consideration. Any registered voter can do it. The county boards of elections will begin sending out ballots to those who request them starting on September 4. When you get your ballot in the mail, you should mark it in the presence of one witness. That witness doesn't have to be close enough to see who you're voting for, and probably shouldn't be. Then once you're through marking your ballot, you place your ballot in the return envelope, which comes with your ballot materials in the mail, and then you and your witness fill out all of the required sections on the outside of that envelope. The witness has to sign it. They have to print their name and date. And you do the same as a voter. Just follow the instructions that come with the ballot itself. You mail it back, or you can return it in person to your county board of elections office, or to an early voting site during voting hours. And then your county, provided that you did everything correctly, will process and count your ballot.

On changes implemented after absentee ballot problems in the 9th Congressional District:

Yes, there were [changes], and most of them were instituted by the General Assembly. Prior to the change in the law, the state board would publish — for every election — lists of folks who requested absentee ballots by mail, and those lists were used by political parties, by advocacy groups, by the candidates to then target mailings and and things like that to people that they knew were going to vote. Well, during the 9th Congressional District scandal, those lists were used for other purposes, such as tracking people down who had requested ballots. And we believe the evidence showed that those lists were used for nefarious purposes in the 9th Congressional District scandal. So the General Assembly decided to make those lists confidential until Election Day. So those lists are no longer available. So that's one thing that the General Assembly did. The General Assembly also created some new laws and new penalties for fraud related to absentee ballots. There were things that happened in the 9th Congressional District that there were no laws to enforce against. So they created some new laws and also upped the penalties for some existing laws that pertain to absentee voting fraud.

On other ways the state is assuring voters that absentee by mail voting is secure:

I can't even begin to tell you how many people are keeping an eye on our on our processes and the data that we do make available. Some of the data obviously is confidential now, but we do make other datasets available. And candidates, political parties, county boards of elections, political scientists, data scientists, students, researchers, all of these people are keeping an eye on our data and our process. If anything looks strange, trust me, we get it reported to us or the county board of elections get it reported to them. And if we do get reports, we have an investigations division that will investigate any credible allegations of election fraud. They have subpoena power. They are trained investigators and they will investigate any credible allegations of fraud. The last thing I'll mention is that we do a series of audits after the election that basically are checks and balances to make sure that the number of ballots that are counted are the same number as people who showed up to cast them and lots of other different audits that can detect various anomalies that may occur. So all of those things kind of work together in tandem to create what we believe is a very secure process for absentee by mail voting.

For more information, the State Board of Elections recently released its FAQ for absentee by mail voting.

For the most up-to-date information on coronavirus in North Carolina, visit our Live Updates blog here. WFDD wants to hear your stories — connect with us and let us know what you're experiencing.