By Richard Sullins | richard@rantnc.com
North Carolinians who wish to cast an absentee ballot in 2024 can look for their ballots to be delivered by the U.S. Postal Service in late September, now that the state Supreme Court has ruled on a request filed by the “We The People” Party to remove from the ballot the names of its candidates for president and vice president, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Nicole Shanahan.
After Kennedy dropped out of the race on August 23 and publicly endorsed former President Donald Trump, he requested a few days later that the North Carolina Board of Elections remove his name from the November ballot. The Board refused, saying the ballots had already been printed because of a state requirement that they go out no later than September 6. Reprinting a new ballot could not have been completed by that date.
Kennedy then sued the State Board of Elections, seeking a court order that would have granted his request for the removal of his name. After a number of expedited hearings that moved from courtroom to courtroom with the speed of a hanging chad, the state Supreme Court brought the issue to a conclusion in a 4-3 ruling on September 9.
Now that revised ballots have been redesigned and approved in each of the Tar Heel State’s 100 counties, they will be mailed starting September 20 to eligible military and overseas citizens who requested them for the 2024 General Election. For the remainder of us, the state board set September 24 as the date for local elections boards to begin sending absentee ballots by mail, and that includes those who used the Visually Impaired Portal to request and return their ballots.
Karen Brinson Bell, Executive Director of the State Board of Elections, said on September 9 that this task will be a heavy lift, one that still could run afoul of a 45-day federal deadline to distribute ballots to military and overseas ballots to voters.
“This decision imposes a tremendous hardship on our county boards, at an extremely busy time,” she said. “But our election officials are professionals, and I have no doubt we will rise to the challenge.”
No ballots mailed yet
This snafu over absentee ballots does, however, have something of a silver lining that gives elections directors like Lee County’s, Jane Rae Fawcett, an opportunity to clear up some incorrect information that has been circulating through the county for the past couple of months.
There have been reports moving through the community that some people, especially among the county’s elder population, have already received absentee ballots in their mail, even though they had not asked for them. Such stories have even risen so high as to get the attention of persons like the chairman of Lee County’s Board of Commissioners, Republican Kirk Smith.
During an appearance before the Lee County Board of Elections on August 12 where he spoke on his reasons for not restricting the concealed carrying of firearms at the early voting site at the Bob Hales Center, Smith told the board “you have more important duties, like addressing the fact that Lee County residents are receiving absentee ballots for their deceased family members.”
Fawcett told The Rant that in accordance with state law, no absentee ballots have been mailed to anyone so far for the 2024 election, and that doing so would have been a violation of North Carolina’s General Statutes. Her belief is that what those people received in their mail was instead an application for an absentee ballot.
It’s common for groups, like a political party or a special interest group, to mail out absentee ballot applications en masse before the actual ballots are ready to be sent out by local boards of elections. Fawcett said that since no ballots could be sent through the mail until September 20 at the very earliest, an application for an absentee ballot is most likely what these people saw in their mailboxes.
2024 General Election dates and deadlines
Sept. 20: Ballots are distributed to military and overseas citizen voters who have requested them.
Sept. 24: Absentee ballots are distributed to all other voters who have requested them.
Oct. 11: Voter registration ends at 5 p.m.
Oct. 17: In-person early voting begins, and same-day registration is available.
Oct. 29: Absentee ballot request deadline is at 5 p.m.
Nov. 2: In-person early voting ends at 3 p.m.
Nov. 5: General Election Day. All absentee ballots must be returned by 7:30 p.m. to be counted.
It’s Voting DAY, not voting week or voting month or voting year! And it should be the person voting not someone doing it “for them”. You have people living in Nursing Homes who are voting, but really are they? Are people there making sure it’s the person voting and not someone that works at the Nursing Home? Family members differ from “who to vote for”, so should a family member “help” their relative vote? There are so many ways to cheat as we have seen in the past, we had three very wealth men buy a President.
Buying the White House | The Men Who Built America (S1, E7) | Full Episode
(Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan)
In the U.S., showing up in person to cast one’s ballot on Election Day has always been the standard way of exercising that fundamental right. But the Democrats took a page from those rich men in 1896 and are using it today.
So the men and women serving overseas, our ambassadors and embassy staff, our students who study abroad, the sick and disabled, those who cannot make it to the polls, their votes just shouldn’t count?
Or the people who can’t get time off to vote? I guess they shouldn’t be allowed a voice huh? Why stop there? Who needs women voting anyway? They’re too emotional. Just men should be able to vote I say. The ladyfolk ought to stay home and raise the kids.
Absentee voting has been around in some form or another since the revolution my friend. This isn’t some new phenomenon. Oh but that doesn’t stick with the narrative from Caesar does it?
The purpose behind voting on a Tuesday was to make it a difficult as possible for working people to vote. The US is almost the only nation in the world that votes on a weekday and does not make that day a national holiday. It’s just voter suppression.