The State Board of Elections in North Carolina announced on Friday that the distribution of the state’s first absentee ballots for the November election would begin late next week. This decision came after appeals court judges intervened to prevent the original ballots, which included Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name, from being sent out for the upcoming election.
North Carolina was initially set to be the first state in the country to send out ballots to voters for the fall elections. State law required that the first absentee ballots be mailed or transmitted to those who had already requested them no later than 60 days before Election Day, scheduled for September 6 this year. However, following a court ruling on that day, the distribution of ballots containing Kennedy’s name as a presidential candidate was halted.
Kennedy had filed a lawsuit against the board in late August to have his name removed as the candidate for the We The People party, after suspending his campaign and endorsing Republican nominee Donald Trump. County election officials were tasked with reassembling absentee ballot packets, reprinting ballots, and recoding tabulation machines following the court rulings.
Over 166,000 voters have requested absentee ballots in North Carolina so far. The state board announced a two-tiered release of absentee ballots, with ballots for over 13,600 military and overseas voters set to be sent on September 20 to comply with federal law. Absentee ballots for other conventional mail requesters will be sent starting on September 24, allowing counties more time to prepare for the mailing process.
Counties are responsible for covering the costs of reprinting the ballots. Expenses for counties could range from a few thousand dollars in smaller counties to $55,100 in Durham County and up to $300,000 in Wake County, the state’s most populous county. Early in-person voting across the state is scheduled to begin on October 17, with the deadline to request absentee ballots set for October 29.
Since suspending his campaign, Kennedy has been working to have his name removed from ballots in key battleground states like North Carolina, where the race between Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is closely contested. Kennedy previously sued the North Carolina board after they determined it was too late in the ballot printing process to remove his name. The state Supreme Court upheld the decision to exclude Kennedy’s name from the ballot to prevent voter confusion.
