Black voters more likely to be left in limbo by NC absentee ballot dispute
The number of voters whose absentee ballots have been left in limbo by the dispute over how to handle improperly completed envelopes has grown to more than 6,800, and a disproportionate number of them are African Americans, according to data from the State Board of Elections.
As of Sunday morning, the board classified 2,776 mail-in ballots cast by Black voters as “pending cure,” meaning they were missing a required signature or information on the envelope. Black voters account for nearly 41% of those ballots, even though they make up 20.7% of registered voters in North Carolina and have cast only 15.8% of mail-in ballots.
The cure refers to a way of fixing the problems with the envelopes without requiring voters to submit a new ballot. In August, U.S. District Court Judge William Osteen ruled that the state must give voters a chance to address any fixable problems with their ballots.
But after the State Board of Elections proposed a policy for curing ballots as part of a settlement of a lawsuit in state court, Osteen issued an order criticizing the change. He was fine with an earlier board policy that involved mailing a new ballot to voters.
Two days later another federal judge issued a temporary order blocking the elections board from adopting any part of the settlement. The state has instructed local boards of elections to set aside the problem ballots, until the courts either approve the board’s approach or prescribe something different.
“We expect the courts to rule any day on the cure process,” State Board of Elections spokesman Patrick Gannon wrote in an email. “We will issue guidance to the counties – and by extension, to the voters – as soon as we know.”
Absentee or mail-in ballots will make up an unusually large share of votes cast this fall, amid concerns about voting in person during the coronavirus pandemic. By the end of Sunday, 1,300,919 North Carolina voters had requested absentee ballots, more than 7.5 times as many as had at this point in 2016, according to the State Board of Elections.
Nearly 485,000 of those ballots had been returned as of Sunday morning, and about 97% of them were accepted, according to the state board.
“I would say for a lot of folks who have never done this before, that is pretty good,” said Michael Bitzer, a professor of politics and history at Catawba College, noting that absentee ballots require steps voters don’t do in person at the polls, such as to sign the envelope and have a witness who provides an address and signature.
The 6,801 being held aside pending a cure account for about 1.4% of mailed ballots, according to the elections board. Of those, 45.3% were cast by white voters, who make up 64.3% of registered voters and have cast nearly 72% of mail-in ballots. (The remaining 14% pending a cure were cast by Asian American, Native American, “other” or undesignated voters.)
It’s not clear why the rate of problem ballots would vary by race; there’s nothing on the outside of the envelope to indicate a voter’s race when local elections officials or boards are determining whether it should be set aside for lack of a signature or address. Bitzer said African Americans may have a higher number of problems this fall because they have tended to vote by mail less than others.
“That is a group that traditionally votes in person,” he said. “They’re using a new vote method, and it may be that they are just not familiar with the process.”
Patricia Barnes Land of High Point isn’t really sure why her mail-in ballot was set aside. Land says she received an email telling her there was something wrong with the witness address, though the witness wrote the address herself.
Land, who is white, reported her situation to the Electionland project, a collaboration of newsrooms around the country tracking voting problems. In an interview Tuesday, she said she assumed the ballot had been thrown away, and she is now planning to vote in person.
“I was trying to avoid voting in person in the first place,” she said. “This whole thing is just kind of a big mess.”
Thousands of mail-in ballots ‘spoiled’ as well
The ballots in limbo are not the only ones that haven’t been counted. As of Sunday morning, 3,808 mail-in ballots were listed as “spoiled,” which means they are discarded. A ballot can be spoiled by the voter who reports making a mistake or by local elections officials, who find a problem such as a ripped envelope that could indicate that the ballot had been tampered with.
About 70% of spoiled ballots were cast by white voters, in line with the portion of mail-in votes.
Gannon, the elections board spokesman, says people who have problems with their first ballot get more chances to vote. He said the state board will act quickly to put in place whatever cure process the courts approve, and noted voters also have the option of voting in person at an early-voting site or on Election Day.
“We fully anticipate the actual number of voters with deficiencies who ultimately do not vote in this election will be a small fraction of that number after voters cure their ballot or vote in person,” he wrote in an email.
Anticipating that more people would want to vote by mail during the COVID-19 pandemic, the state elections board and the General Assembly took steps to simplify the process. They made it easier to request an absentee ballot, redesigned the envelope with clearer instructions and launched BallotTrax, a website that lets voters check the status of their returned ballot.
Legislators reduced the witness requirement to one person, rather than two witnesses or a notary public. Republican leaders of the legislature say having someone witness the submission of an absentee ballot remains crucial and that the cure process devised by the state board to settle the lawsuit would have allowed people to circumvent it.
They, along with President Donald Trump’s campaign committee and the Republican National Committee, filed lawsuits seeking to stop the changes. Now elections boards and thousands of voters await the outcome of those lawsuits to determine how to fix the deficient ballots.
This story was originally published October 13, 2020 at 9:30 AM with the headline "Black voters more likely to be left in limbo by NC absentee ballot dispute."
