Just under 600 ballots printed by the Macon County Board of Elections must be thrown out to comply with a court ruling as absentee by mail voting was to start.
Friday, Sept. 6, should have been the day absentee ballots went out for the 2024 Election in North Carolina. The N.C. Court of Appeals ordered the N.C. State Board of Elections to remove Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name from the ballot, putting the entire state elections operations in limbo. Then on Monday night, the N.C. Supreme Court affirmed that decision.
Kennedy filed suit against the N.C. State Board of Elections to remove his name from the U.S. presidential race after he recently withdrew and gave his support to the Republican nominee, former President Donald J. Trump. Kennedy originally ran for president under the We The People party, having successfully petitioned over the summer to be put on the ballot.
“Before the Court of Appeals’ ruling, the 100 county boards planned to send the first wave of ballots to eligible absentee voters who requested ballots on Friday,” the NCSBE stated on Friday. “That would have made North Carolina the first state to send ballots to voters for the Nov. 5 general election. As of Friday afternoon, more than 136,300 voters had requested absentee ballots statewide, including about 12,700 military and overseas voters.
Macon County Board of Elections Director Melanie Thibault said luckily, her office had printed only “a little less than 600” ballots as of Friday for absentee-by-mail voting.
Thibault said their equipment can print ballots on-site, so Macon County doesn’t have to buy absentee or early voting ballots from the state. Macon County does purchase Election Day ballots from the state.
“I kinda had a feeling it would happen, so I held off on ordering those ballots,” Thibault said of the Election Day ballots.
Thibault said phones were “ringing off the hook” on Monday as people were calling to ask about the status of the absentee ballots. Before the N.C. Supreme Court ruling, Thibault said if Kennedy was removed from the ballot, it would cost the elections office more money to get new coding and print more absentee-by-mail ballots.
“The absentee ballot request deadline is 5 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 29,” the NCSBE stated. “Election officials urge voters who wish to vote by mail to request their ballot as early as possible to ensure there is time to receive it and then send it back to their county board of elections so that it is received no later than 7:30 p.m. on Election Day – Nov. 5. The cost for voters to mail back a ballot has increased to $1.77. Three Forever stamps (73 cents each) would cover this amount.”