A story from the Guardian speaks to a task on my plate this morning:
Black voters in North Carolina are disproportionately having their mail-in ballots flagged for potential rejection in the battleground state, setting off alarms about disenfranchisement.
North Carolina requires mail-in voters to get a witness for their ballots and at least 7,000 mail-in ballots have been flagged across the state because of a deficiency, according to data collected by Michael Bitzer, a professor at Catawba College who closely tracks voting data in the state. As of Wednesday, 40% of rejected ballots – 2,871 – were from Black voters, even though they comprised only 16% of the overall ballots returned. (A spokesman for the state board of elections cautioned some of the data may be outdated because local election offices have not been entering rejection data into the statewide system while legal challenges are pending.)
That 40% number corresponds to what I’m seeing locally. The overall rejection rate seems (don’t quote me) about 2.3% so far, but significantly higher for Black voters. What adds to the confusion is the litigation surrounding absentee ballots that keeps modifying the rules even during the ballot review process. North Carolina has set up a ballot “cure” process but modified it since mailing out ballots. But this makes it difficult for reporting to keep up.
The New York Times has an interactive explainer for the different ways your ballot might be challenged or rejected. It’s informative, but out of date in spots where it comes to North Carolina’s rules. Double-check what you read in the news. The rules are a moving target this cycle.
NPR ran a story last week on groups attempting to help voters fix defects in their ballots. My assignment each morning now is to pull the county list of mailed ballots flagged for defects. Local activists are taking the list and working Black neighborhoods to contact voters whose ballots are in limbo. Fortunately, North Carolina allows a registrants to vote early (that started last Thursday). Finding these voters and taking them to the polls to vote in person means their flagged absentee ballots will be voided and their in-person ballots will count.
So it goes.
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