NEW HANOVER, N.C. — With more than 830,000 absentee by mail ballots already sent out to North Carolina voters, it hasn’t come as much of a surprise to elections officials that there have already been a handful of issues.
That includes a couple sticky situations—literally.
Rosalie Majkowski, a Pine Valley resident, said when she and her son went to mail their ballots back to the New Hanover County Board of Elections, they found the ballot return envelopes were already partially sealed.
“We went to open the envelopes and they wouldn’t open,” she said. "So I got a knife, and my son said, ‘Stop, because if you do anything, they might think it’s fraudulent, and they won’t accept your ballot.’”
Another voter reported their return envelope was actually stuck to the ballot itself, and despite trying carefully to remove it, the envelope tore and stuck to the ballot.
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New Hanover elections director Rae Hunter-Havens said they’ve had a couple dozen reports of sticking envelopes out of the roughly 3,200 ballots that have come back.
“We did receive some phone calls in the days following that a few voters were reporting that the container return envelopes, and their ballot packages may have been sealed shut, or maybe partially sealed shut,” she said.
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Who can vote absentee in North Carolina?
In North Carolina, any registered voter qualified to vote in an election can request a mail-in absentee ballot for the November 2020 election — no special reason is needed.
To request an absentee ballot in NC, the voter, the voter's near relative, legal guardian or any member of a multipartisan assistance team authorized to assist the voter, must fill out the NC absentee ballot request form.
On September 1, NCSBE debuted a new online portal where registered voters can request an absentee-by-mail ballot entirely online.
The statewide deadline for requesting an absentee ballot in North Carolina this year is Tuesday, October 27 at 5 p.m.
Each ballot in its return envelope must be returned to the county board of elections no later than 5 p.m. on Election Day in order to be counted, with one notable exception.
UPDATE: On October 20, a federal appeals court ruled that the State of North Carolina can count absentee ballots that are postmarked by Election Day for upwards of nine days after the election. This was an extension from the previous three-day deadline.
But still, if North Carolina voters who requested absentee are not comfortable with taking the risk or can't vote in person on Election Day, they can deliver it in person. If delivering it in person, the voter or the voter's near relative can return it to the county board of elections. Likewise, the voter can deliver it in person to an early voting site during the early voting period.