MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. — Right now, North Carolina Board of Elections workers are busy preparing mail-in ballots for early voting.
The process has been delayed since last week after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sued to get his name off the ballot. The state Supreme Court sided with RFK Jr., which meant counties had to format and print new ballots. The old ballots with RFK Jr.’s name are locked up in a secured area.
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Dedicated staff across the state have been working nonstop to make sure everything is prepared for the new rollout.
At 12:01 a.m. Friday, overseas and military voters from Mecklenburg County who have requested to vote electronically will have their ballots hit their email boxes. For everyone else, Mecklenburg County elections staff members are working hard to make sure everything is ready for Tuesday’s mailout.
The Mecklenburg County Board of Elections invited Channel 9′s Joe Bruno Thursday to see how workers were preparing thousands of absentee ballots, putting all of the required information into envelopes that will be mailed out on Tuesday.
“We have people who have worked weekends, worked nights. We just want to make sure we are doing everything correctly,” said elections specialist Juan Cuartas. “We just want to make sure we are doing everything efficiently.”
Cuartas said that overseas and military voters can print it out and mail it back the old-school way.
“They can do it through the portal that the state has,” he said. “And the other option is they can email it back to us, but they do have to sign a privacy waiver because we do have to duplicate those ballots when they come back to our office.”
There were 166,000 people in North Carolina who requested mail ballots. More than 13,000 are military and overseas voters.
Political experts expect only 3% to 4% of all votes cast to be by mail.
“I think with people having the convenience of in-person voting, I think that that will be again, the predominant dynamic at play,” said Michael Bitzer, a political expert.
Mecklenburg County voters requested more than 27,000 ballots.
Anyone can request a mail ballot in this state. You do not need an excuse.
In-person voting starts on Oct. 17. Click here to check your registration status.
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