Guidance on mail-in ballot envelopes issued by North Carolina’s Democrat-controlled election board violates state law, a legal challenge filed Tuesday alleges.
Brought by the Republican National Committee, North Carolina GOP, and a state resident, the lawsuit alleges that the rules put forward by the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) governing absentee ballot security envelopes contradict statutory requirements approved by the state general assembly. Individual members of the NCSBE are named as defendants in the suit.
At issue is a 2021 memo issued by the board to local election officials that plaintiffs argue “undermines the protections afforded by the General Assembly’s carefully drafted absentee-voting statutes.”
Under North Carolina law, an absentee elector is mandated to place his completed ballot — which, according to the lawsuit, must satisfy “several statutorily prescribed requirements” — in a “container-return envelope.” After the voter “securely seal[s]” his container-return envelope “or ha[s] this done in [his] presence,” the container-return envelope must be signed by the voter and two witnesses or one notary public before it can be submitted to his local election board for tabulation.
According to plaintiffs, the 2021 memo sent to local officials by the NCSBE allegedly “conflicts with several provisions” of state law governing this process. Specifically, they claim the board’s directive “advises county boards of elections that an absentee ballot may be counted even if it is not submitted in a sealed container-return envelope.”
“[A]ccording to pages 3 and 4 of the Numbered Memo, county boards of elections should count an
