Here are the changes NC is making to mail-in voting in 2020, and why advocates want more
Voting by mail will be easier in this November’s elections, under a bill that’s moving quickly through the North Carolina General Assembly on its way to becoming law.
Due to coronavirus concerns, state officials have said they think absentee voting might increase tenfold this year — from a normal rate of around 4% to maybe as high as 40%.
Last week, a bipartisan group of lawmakers filed HB 1169. The bill would:
▪ Make it easier for people to request absentee ballots, allowing those requests to come by email or fax.
▪ Require only one person to serve as a witness instead of two.
▪ Mandate new technology to help voters track their ballot to make sure it gets submitted.
▪ Spend millions of dollars on public health, cyber security and other elections-related initiatives.
“I am really very, very proud of this bill and proud of our bipartisan work,” Rep. Allison Dahle, a Cary Democrat who’s one of the bill sponsors, said Wednesday morning.
Some voting rights advocates and liberal activists, however, say the bill is a good start but doesn’t do enough. They’re asking for Election Day to be a holiday, and for state officials to automatically send out absentee ballot request forms to every voter in the state, among other requests.
Republican, Democratic wins
But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have said they worked for weeks crafting new rules that gave both Republicans and Democrats some, but not all, of what they wanted. The bill quickly and unanimously passed one committee Wednesday morning and passed a second committee in the afternoon in an 18-2 vote.
Republican Rep. Holly Grange of Wilmington, another bill sponsor, said she expects the bill to go up for a vote in the full N.C. House of Representatives on Thursday and, she hopes, another quick vote in the N.C. Senate after that.
“There may be some minor changes, but we did pre-conference with the Senate,” Grange said, adding that “we coordinated with the governor’s office to a great extent, as well as the state Board of Elections.”
While Democrats celebrated some of the provisions in the bill expanding voting access, Republicans cheered other parts, like a ban on moving to 100% mail-in elections — and a section that says any election official who sends absentee ballots to voters who didn’t properly request them could be charged with a felony.
Republican Rep. David Lewis said that new criminal charge was meant to address concerns about potential fraud.
“To be candid, there’s a lot of fear and a lot of angst nationally about vote-by-mail ... that that’s going to somehow be manipulated to change the outcome,” Lewis said Wednesday.
Republican President Donald Trump has routinely made false claims about voter fraud being prevalent, and in recent days his evidence-free statements have focused on mail-in ballots.
Advocates want changes
As the bill moves forward, however, a coalition of 30 mostly left-leaning groups held what they called a “virtual day of action” Wednesday asking for additions aimed at increasing access to the polls. With social distancing guidelines still in place, they’re hoping that online activism can have the same impact as an in-person rally.
“We will not be silent now,” said Rev. T. Anthony Spearman, president of the N.C. NAACP and a lead organizer of the virtual rally.
They asked people who participated Wednesday to use the social media hashtag #ProtectOurVoteNC.
They also planned to host virtual rallies and events throughout the day, including a 4 p.m. rally on Zoom led by former N.C. NAACP president Rev. William Barber.
People who are interested in learning more can go to www.protectourvotenc.org for more details.
Election Day a holiday?
Caitlin Swain, an attorney and co-director of the Durham-based group Forward Justice, said Tuesday that there are several vital elections-related changes — notably, making Election Day a holiday — that lawmakers should pass but that aren’t currently in the elections bill.
“There’s really no disagreement about what is necessary,” she said. “The disagreement is about political will.”
Making Election Day a holiday, she said, would allow for polling places to be put in large buildings like schools that would otherwise be in use during the day. The larger the building, the better for public health and social distancing, she said.
Plus, if Election Day was a holiday, state officials might not be as reliant as they usually are on older people to serve as poll workers — a concern this year, Swain said, since older people face higher risks from coronavirus.
Grange said Wednesday that she and the other bill sponsors did consider the possibility of making Election Day a holiday — but decided against proposing it due to opposition from her colleagues in the Senate.
“What is in this bill is what they are willing to agree to,” she said.
Other proposed changes
But that’s not stopping activists like Spearman and Swain from asking their supporters to push for more.
And time is of the essence to them: Since absentee ballots will start being mailed out well in advance of the November elections, Spearman said, any major changes on that front need to happen by July if they’re going to happen at all.
Other priorities on their wishlist, that aren’t in the bill now, include:
▪ Putting pre-paid postage on all absentee ballots.
▪ Automatically sending absentee ballot request forms to every voter in the state.
▪ Allowing felons to vote once they’ve been released from prison, even if they remain on probation or parole.
▪ Allowing for more curbside voting where people can drive to their polling place and vote without leaving their car.
Some of those goals are common on the political left but unpopular on the right. The Republican-led legislature would almost certainly not approve all of them — especially with key leaders like N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore saying he supports the bill.
One of the Democratic sponsors on the bill, Greensboro Rep. Pricey Harrison, told the N&O last week that the bill is a genuine compromise that gives both sides some of what they wanted.
“It doesn’t go as far we want, but we got as much as we could,” she said.
When the bill passed the House Rules Committee 18-2 Wednesday afternoon, the two opponents were Republican Reps. Jamie Boles of Moore County and Dana Bumgardner of Gaston County.
Boles didn’t explain his vote; Bumgardner said he thought the changes were premature since nobody knows now how serious coronavirus will be in the fall.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published May 26, 2020 at 3:56 PM with the headline "Here are the changes NC is making to mail-in voting in 2020, and why advocates want more."
