A New Court Ruling In North Carolina Is A Mixed Bag
On Wednesday night, we got two big court rulings in North Carolina that might be kind of confusing if you haven’t been following the case closely. Here’s the background: Last month, the North Carolina State Board of Elections and voting-rights groups reached a settlement that extended the absentee-ballot receipt deadline to Nov. 12, set up ballot drop boxes and made it easier for voters to fix mistakes on their absentee ballots.
A federal judge upheld that settlement on Wednesday, but said that the state was interpreting the settlement too liberally. At the center of the dispute: Election officials were allowing ballots with mistakes to count as long as the voter signed an affidavit, even if that mistake was that the ballot was not signed by a witness. The court ruled that an affidavit signature wasn’t enough in that case, and that ballots without a witness signature must be completely recast with one.
This means that an unknown number of voters who submitted ballots without witness signatures will now need to start over and cast a new ballot. Overall, though, this ruling is a loss for Republicans who wanted to invalidate the entire settlement — the fact that the absentee-ballot receipt deadline is now Nov. 12 is a fairly big deal.
However, the case isn’t over yet, as Republicans say they’re willing to take it all the way to the Supreme Court.