North Carolina mail-in ballot restrictions to remain through midterms, judge rules

A federal judge ruled Monday that North Carolina is permitted to keep its strict mail-in ballot rules in place for November’s election, which were changed just before ballots were mailed in September.

In the ruling, Judge Thomas D. Shroeder wrote that it was too close to the election to change the rules again, and that plaintiffs waited too long to file their motion.

“The Supreme Court has repeatedly admonished lower courts that they ‘should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election,’” Shroeder wrote. “Here, ‘[t]he election is not merely upcoming; it has already started.’”

North Carolina’s state board of elections updated the state’s rules to disqualify ballots where the signature does not match the name on the voter’s application. The new procedures also direct county election officials not to count votes if the inner envelope is not properly sealed.

The Tar Heel State is home to some widely-watched congressional races this cycle, including an open U.S. Senate seat that Democrats see as their best opportunity for a pickup. Nonpartisan election forecaster Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ), a partner of The Hill, gives Democrat and former Gov. Roy Cooper an 84 percent chance of defeating Republican Michael Whatley.

After the state board’s decision, North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein (D) told The Hill that the changes were “a slap in the face to voters,” and said that the decision was circumventing state law.

While a longstanding practice, mail-in voting gained traction during the Covid pandemic, but has since been challenged and restricted by Republicans. Trump has repeatedly claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent, despite the fact that he has voted by mail in his home state of Florida.

The president attempted to alter the rules for mail-in voting by executive order earlier this year, but the Supreme Court ruled that the changes could not take effect for the midterms.

Still, Democratic voters may be changing their vote method ahead of the midterms. An NBC News analysis found that mail-in ballot requests from North Carolina Democrats are 40 percent lower than at this point in 2022.

Polling bears out Democrats’ lower confidence as well. A September NPR/PBS News/Marist poll found that just 60 percent of Democrats are confident that the U.S. Postal Service will deliver election mail on time, down from 86 percent of Democrats in 2024.