RELEASE: North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans, Supported by Priorities USA, Files Motion to Protect Absentee Ballots from Disqualification
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On September 24th, the North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans, supported by Priorities USA, filed a motion to intervene in a case brought by the Republican National Committee, the North Carolina Republican Party, and Virginia Wasserberg. This case challenges the North Carolina Board of Election’s guidance on accepting absentee ballots that are returned in a sealed envelope, seeking to force county boards of elections not to count ballots delivered in sealed outer envelopes unless the inner envelope also is sealed.
Just weeks before voting in the 2024 general election begins, plaintiffs the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party are in search of new procedural traps to drum up alleged errors in hopes of disqualifying mail ballots cast by qualified voters.
Prior to 2023, voters returned their absentee ballots in a single envelope, but with the implementation of additional voter identification requirements the North Carolina Board of Elections instituted a two-envelope system. The Board updated its absentee ballot guidance in September 2023 to clarify that ballots should be counted so long as one of the envelopes is sealed, concluding on a unanimous and bipartisan basis that this was necessary to prevent disenfranchisement and was a proper application of North Carolina law.
On September 4, 2024, the Republicans filed this action claiming that ballots fully sealed inside the mail envelope should be discarded unless they are also sealed inside the second, inner envelope, even though there is no dual-sealing requirement in North Carolina law.
“Older voters take the right to vote seriously and are the most likely to vote absentee,” said Bill Dworkin, President of the North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans. “This desperate lawsuit brought by the Republican Party is just another attempt to suppress and disqualify legally cast ballots from being counted. The right to vote is precious, and we are proud to be in the fight to protect voters across North Carolina from being disenfranchised.”
“Ballots have already been mailed out in North Carolina, and the Republican Party is doing everything they can to suppress votes by seeking out ways to disqualify ballots,” said Danielle Butterfield, Executive Director of Priorities USA. “We are doing everything we can to ensure voters can return their ballots safely, securely, and without fear that it won’t be counted for partisan reasons.”