Absentee ballots to be mailed starting Friday

ELIZABETHTOWN — Bladen County has held multiple elections and avoided the type of national embarrassment that came with 2018.

The stakes, however, are much higher this time around. President, governor, seven of nine county commissioner seats — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Plenty of attention will be here again starting Friday, the day absentee ballots can be mailed by the county Board of Elections. In many ways, it is arguably the official start of the general election despite early voting being another six weeks away and Election Day some 60 days out.

The state Board of Elections says allow 10 days for absentee ballots to reach the voter. If not received in that time, voters should contact the Bladen County Board of Elections.

Those who have requested absentee ballots can return them as soon as they like. New rules were put in place this year, in part because of implications from COVID-19. The deadline for returning them is a postmark on or before Election Day. In-person drop-offs must be done at the county board office by 5 p.m. on Election Day, which is Nov. 3.

Across the country, political observers say a record number of ballots could be mailed in. North Carolina has more than 7 million registered voters, and through Thursday had received 488,550 absentee ballot requests — 704 of which have been made in Bladen County.

Absentee voting in Bladen County has a mysterious history, including the still unresolved outcome of 11 arrests that followed a February 2019 evidentiary hearing by the state Board of Elections. There, testimony led the board to not verify three races related to Bladen County in the 2018 mid-terms including a seat in Congress.

The Rev. Mark Harris, who had appeared to win that position in November, reached the end of his testimony by concluding he wasn’t sure about the election’s integrity. Before he took the stand, testimony revealed a ballot harvesting scheme orchestrated by Bladenboro’s McCrae Dowless included paid workers filling in signatures and marking ballots for registered voters.

Prosecutor Lorrin Freeman from the Wake County Office of the District Attorney has only cleared Harris — who was never arrested — of any wrongdoing. It is unclear why the 11 cases haven’t reached a courtroom. Interestingly, Harris had finished second in a June 2016 primary for the same congressional seat and was suspicious of third-place Todd Johnson and his absentee vote total. Johnson had hired Dowless to help his campaign.

Democrat Dan McCready, who had appeared to lose to Harris, lost to Republican Dan Bishop in the redo.

The Bladen County Improvement Association, a political action group largely funded by Democrats, delivered hundreds of absentee ballots to the county office two years ago. Their leader, Horace Munn, said last year they were “tipped off” about a potential investigation and didn’t engage in any “absentee ballot programs” in 2018. The tip is believed to have come from Joshua Malcolm, a Robeson County lawyer formerly on the state Board of Elections. He was also previously legal counsel for UNC Pembroke, which has balked and been sued for the right to Malcolm’s emails, texts and other communications.

In 2019, new boards and executive directors were, respectively, put in place for the state and Bladen County. Malcolm has represented two of those county board members brought before the state board on complaints.

Bladen County has since conducted a redo of the three 2018 races, including a primary and general election; the 2019 municipal elections; and a primary for this year’s election cycle. No complaints or charges have emanated from any of them.

The county board, with three Democrats as its majority, has also advocated for and overseen Sunday voting for the first time.

The last day to request an absentee by mail ballot, which any registered voter can do, is Oct. 27. The regular voter registration deadline is Oct. 9; those not making that date would have to register and cast their ballot by going to an early voting site between Oct. 15 and Oct. 31.

The presidential year election is expected to draw considerable turnout. County races are contested for seven of the nine commissioners’ seats, one more than usual for this cycle because of the special election in District 3. There are also three seats on the Board of Education on the ballot, and one seat on the Bladen County Soil & Water Conservation District board.

This election cycle will also decide:

• the nation’s president.

• one U.S. Senate seat for North Carolina.

• the U.S. House District 7 seat that will now encompass all of Bladen County.

• governor and all nine Council of State positions.

• all seats in the North Carolina General Assembly, which includes relative to Bladen County the state Senate District 8 and House District 22 seats.

• seats on the state’s Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.

• four District Court judge seats in District 13, of which one is designated Bladen County.