Election 2020: State election board issues 3rd set of rules for absentee ballots

ELIZABETHTOWN — Bladen County Board of Elections staff was given new instruction Monday, its third set of rules since absentee ballots were mailed to voters Sept. 4.

The latest unprecedented change of rules after an election was underway came on the day before the three Democrats and two Republicans who represent the county’s 22,645 registered voters were to hold their fourth of seven meetings to approve returned absentee ballots. Bladen County is not processing any through tabulators until Election Day.

With a day more than two weeks remaining to Election Day, the state Board of Elections told counties to resume notifying voters if their ballots had arrived with deficiencies. They are to tell them to fix the problem, or to start the process over. A memo says voters mailing in ballots without a witness signature must start a new ballot and have it witnessed again.

It is not clear how many are on hold in Bladen County. Chris Williams, the staff director, said they’ve been pulled and secured but on Friday he was unsure just how many needed a cure.

The state has estimated more than 10,000 ballots need to be fixed. The last day to request an absentee ballot is Oct. 27.

The number of absentee ballot requests through Sunday was 1.3 million in the state, and 1,944 in Bladen County. The state says more than 1.5 million people have already voted, including 4,966 in Bladen County.

The election began with absentee ballots mailed Sept. 4 by county boards, and those voting needed to have a witness signature on their envelope when returning it. The state board’s executive director, Karen Brinson Bell, then negotiated a deal in lawsuits that was announced Sept. 22 — a deal brokered to get around having a witness signature. The General Assembly in June had already passed, and gained the signature of Gov. Roy Cooper, of a bill that reduced the witness requirement from two people to one.

Bell is a Cooper appointee.

When U.S. District Court Judge William Osteen got wind of the proposed deal using language from his Aug. 4 ruling, he ordered an immediate hearing. The state then, on Oct. 1, told counties to stop doing anything with the absentee ballots that didn’t meet the original requirement.

Last week, Osteen issued a split ruling in a case between arguing Democrats and Republicans. Absentee ballots, controversial in the 2018 election that involved Bladen County and North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, must have a witness signature, he said.

That ruling for the GOP was balanced by allowing Democrats’ wishes for absentee ballots postmarked Nov. 3 or earlier to still be accepted up to nine days past Election Day rather than three. Bladen County’s canvass is Nov. 13. Osteen also allowed absentee ballots to be returned to anonymous, unstaffed drop boxes.

The state board of three Democrats and two Republicans has defended its move in part using Osteen’s order from Aug. 4. The judge more than bristled at that, and Judge Joseph Dever moved two election-related cases before him to Osteen’s oversight in an attempt to keep rulings consistent.

“This court upheld the witness requirement — to claim a cure which eliminates that witness requirement is ‘consistent with’ this court’s order is a gross mischaracterization,” Osteen wrote in his decision Wednesday.

He was very clear in his admonishment of the actions that led to controversy more than a month before Election Day.

“In all candor, this court cannot conceive of a more problematic conflict with the provisions of Chapter 163 [Elections and Election Laws] of the North Carolina General Statutes than the procedures implemented by the Revised 2020-19 memo and the Consent Order,” he wrote. “This court believes this is in clear violation of SBE’s powers, even its emergency powers.”

The suit is North Carolina Alliance of Retired Americans v. North Carolina State Board of Elections. Republicans believe Democrats running for office — Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein — have colluded with the North Carolina Alliance of Retired Americans, which is backed by Democrats, to weaken security laws in a state chiefly among the top half-dozen in the election’s presidential and U.S. Senate battleground.

With regard to the two cases accepted from Dever’s courtroom, Osteen wrote that the state board’s action could not survive a legal challenge.