In the shadow of the federal fight over absentee ballots, NC is ready to start mailing them out

Despite the tangle of federal court rulings concerning U.S. Postal Service control of absentee ballot delivery, North Carolina Elections Director Sam Hayes said Thursday that counties are ready to start mailing ballots to people who request them on Friday as scheduled. 

“All 100 county boards of elections are prepared to start that process, and North Carolina would be the first state in the country to send absentee ballots for the 2026 general election,” Hayes said at a news conference. 

The Postal Service is taking steps to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order to control absentee ballot delivery. States would be required to submit names and addresses of people who have asked for mail ballots to a federal portal, along with barcodes on the envelopes. The Postal Service would refuse to deliver ballots to people not on the list. That plan is being challenged in federal court. 

“We’re closely monitoring legal developments,” Hayes said. North Carolina already complies with the barcode requirement. 

The Southern Coalition for Social Justice sent state election officials a letter Thursday saying that complying with the new Postal Service rule would violate state law. 

Hayes said North Carolina would comply with the Postal Service rule if courts allow implementation.

New NC voting rules delayed, but state elections board to consider workaround

State rule changes 

The State Board of Elections is also considering last-minute changes to the way counties handle absentee ballots. The board was to have discussed those directions to counties on Wednesday, but delayed consideration until Friday, the same day ballots go out. 

The specifics are a mystery. The changes under consideration have not been made public.  Hayes did not say specifically what the board will discuss, but said he did not anticipate the changes would have any impact on voters. 

Advice for mail-in voters

In an interview, Hilary Harris Klein, senior counsel for voting rights at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, advised people who want to vote by mail to request their ballots as early as possible and get them back in the mail at least two weeks before the deadline for them to be received, which is 7:30 pm, Nov. 3. 

County boards of election may have more information about mail delivery timelines, she said. 

BallotTrax is available for voters who want to stay updated on the status of their absentee ballots. Voters worried that their mail-in ballots won’t arrive in time to be counted should have a back-up plan, Klein said. 

Requesting an absentee ballot does not require a person to vote by mail. People can change their minds and vote in person.

Parker Holland, state director of elections administration, said at the news conference that if mail-in voters monitoring BallotTrax see that their ballots have not been counted by election eve, they can vote in person on Election Day and call their county board of elections to tell them to “spoil,” or disregard, their absentee ballot. Safeguards at the county level will flag any voter who attempts to vote twice.

Instructions and barcodes

Marian Lewin, 1st vice president of the League of Women Voters of North Carolina, said in an interview that the most common mistake she’s seen voters make with absentee ballots are people failing to put their ballots in the correct envelopes. 

Ballots and envelopes have matching barcodes. Voters within a household sometimes swap envelopes, so the barcodes don’t match. Most people don’t understand how the ballot and the envelope are linked, she said. 

Lewin has been an elections worker or observer in Wake County for decades. She has spent hours watching Wake elections officials count absentee ballots. 

The absentee ballot package comes with two envelopes. Completed ballots are supposed to be sealed in the inner envelopes, with copies of photo ID in a clear sleeve on the outside of that envelope. That sealed ballot envelope goes into the outer return mailing envelope. 

Common problems include voters failing to seal their ballots in the proper envelope, or having copies of their IDs sealed in the inner envelopes with their ballots, Lewin said.

“Put the ballot in the envelope and seal it,” she said. “Don’t let it be loose in your mailing envelope.”