NC elections officials alter mail ballot rules just before they’re mailed out

quote:

---

The North Carolina State Board of Elections approved new guidelines Friday regarding mail-in ballots, hours before those same ballots were sent to voters.

The new guidelines pertain to the standards the board will use to decide whether to count a mail-in ballot — including requiring officials to disqualify a ballot if its signature does not match the name assigned to the application on the return envelope.

---

quote:

---

Other changes specify that only a near relative or legal guardian can deliver a voter’s mail-in ballot in person on their behalf, and they require officials to disqualify ballots if more than one is included in a return envelope.

The new guidelines were debated between board officials, with the two Democrats dissenting.

“To my mind, we’re doing an end run around the process that we said we wanted to do,” Democratic member Siobhan Millen said at the board’s meeting. “It may not affect you as you’re filling it out, but it affects whether your ballot counts — that’s huge. So, an effort to say this is just a process thing, I think is incorrect.”

---

quote:

---

The guidelines were approved as numbered memos after similar rulings from the board couldn’t go into effect — despite the state’s Rules Review Commission unanimously approving them — due to a provision in state law that delays such rules if 10 or more formal objections are received.

---