The Democratic-majority NC State Board of Elections and the Republican-majority NC Supreme Court went to war over whether or not former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should be allowed to remove his name from the ballot in the upcoming election – and the losers of that battle are the 100 county elections departments across North Carolina and the employees who work in those departments.
Because of a ruling by the NC Supreme Court that Kennedy – and other We The People Party candidates – should be removed from ballots, boards of elections across the state have to throw into the trash three million ballots that they had worked on for weeks and already paid for.
No one knows the cost for sure – which involves overtime, printing expenses, delivery costs and other logistical expenses, but some news outlets that have spoken with multiple counties estimate that the last-minute change pay tag will total at least $1 million dollars statewide, not counting overtime and some other ancillary costs.
On Friday, Aug. 23 Kennedy withdrew from the presidential race and endorsed Republican Nominee Donald Trump – and there’s a belief among Kennedy and Republicans that leaving Kennedy’s name on the ballot would take votes away from Trump and help Democratic Nominee Kamala Harris in a state that’s now a nearly must-win one, and one that’s too close to call.
So, the decision by the Supreme Court could help Trump in that manner.
The ruling is likely to help Trump in another way as well: It has disrupted and delayed the absentee ballot voting period and that’s likely to help Trump and other Republicans since Democrats tend to use absentee voting more than Republicans.
On Friday, Sept. 6, the Guilford County Board of Elections – like the elections departments in the state’s other 99 counties – was ready to, and legally required to, begin mailing out absentee ballots to voters who had requested them. However, the NC Court of Appeals slammed the breaks on that at the last minute, and, days later, the Supreme Court upheld the decision.
The NC Court of Appeals’ order that was upheld directed election offices not to send out the ballots and instead directed election departments across the state to make new ballots with the names of the We The People Party candidates removed, including Kennedy’s and the name of his vice-presidential running mate, Nicole Ann Shanahan.
The NC Court of Appeals had overturned a Wake County Superior Court ruling that denied the request from the We The People Party to remove Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s name from ballots.
Guilford County Board of Elections Director Charlie Collicutt stated then that his department was “going to have to start all over again.”
He said the matter was complicated by the fact that Guilford County has many different ballot styles and each one of those styles would have to be altered, reproofed and reprinted.
There are over 2,300 ballot styles across the state and about 60 in Guilford County.
This week, Collicutt said his office is now working as hard as possible and following the directive of the Supreme Court.
“We officially are reprinting – as are all 100 counties,” he said.
He added, “Hopefully, our ballots are delivered late this week or early next week.”
According to Collicutt, the State Board of Elections has informed his office that all counties will mail out ballots on the same day so that all voters across the state get equal treatment, such as the same amount of time to vote.
He said he didn’t currently know when that will be; however, Collicutt added, the federal legal deadline to mail out Military and Overseas ballots is Saturday, Sept. 21.
There is now talk of the state applying for a waiver to the law if counties can’t make that date, he added.
“So, at this time, it will be around that Sept. 21 date that we mail out, but I don’t know specifically what day,” Collicutt said.
The problem is magnified by the fact that there’s a highly limited number of printing companies that do this specialized type of work and there’s a need for millions more ballots. Other states are also placing a similar demand on those companies. This massive demand is being put on those printing companies right after they worked hard to print the last batch of ballots that are now trash.
It was on Thursday, Aug. 29, that the NC State Board of Elections determined it was logistically simply too late in the process to remove the We The People Party nominees. So, the State Board, in an emergency meeting, rejected the party’s request to remove its nominees from the November general election ballots.
A statement from the State Board of Elections noted at that time: “Estimates from the vendor that prints ballots for most NC counties were that the time it would take to prepare and print new ballots would leave most North Carolina counties without ballots until mid-September at the earliest and lead to significant additional costs.”
What if Kennedy’s request had been processed on Friday, Aug. 23 when he withdrew from the presidential race.
I hope they miss the dead line. Cut down on cheating
No surprises here.
OMG!!!! HORROR OF HORRORS!!!!!
This means the (National Socialist) Democrat Party isn’t going to be able manipulate the vote and people are going to have to actually show they are real and alive.
Now if we just get the rest of the country on this plan.
The only real impacted group is the military which is the first group to typically receive their mail in ballots. This is due to time for processing international mail through the military channels. Are you suggesting that Military is full of cheaters?
“This is due to time for processing international mail through the military channels.”
I love it when you blatantly show your ignorance.
Military personnel vote by absentee ballot, not mail-in ballots. There’s a difference genius. An officer is assigned the duty at the Company/Battalion level . They are tasked with and are responsible for the distribution and gathering of those ballots which are transported by military transports back to the States within a given period of time.
You really need to stop showing your lack of knowledge (aka stupidity) about things you are clueless on.
NC under Cooper tried to push them out to keep Kennedy on the ballot as the Democrats wished–NC would still face a lawsuit and the ballots would have to be recalled or tossed. Cooper, we will be so glad when you are gone and Robinson is governor.