The North Carolina State Board of Elections is pushing back against a recent court order that demands the removal of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s name from upcoming general election ballots, a decision they have swiftly appealed to the Supreme Court, according to a press release on the board's website. The initial order, issued by the NC Court of Appeals, set into motion a complex and costly process of reprogramming and reprinting millions of ballots already prepared for the November 5 election.
In response to the Appeals Court ruling, the State Board must now reconfigure 2,348 unique ballot styles amidst the backdrop of an already compressed electoral timeline and the looming federal deadline to dispatch absentee ballots to voters — a task involving numerous logistical challenges the vendor identifies would require an additional 12-13 days beyond what was initially allotted. This chain reaction triggered by the court order means that the first wave of ballots, intended to be sent out Friday, will be delayed, with more than 136,300 requests, including around 12,700 from the military and overseas voters hanging in balance.
Karen Brinson Bell, the state elections director, expressed the urgency of meeting the federal absentee voter mailing deadline of September 21 in an email communication obtained by the State Board of Elections. She asked county officials to "work hard to ensure ballots will be ready" and also directed them not to dispatch any ballots until a new, synchronized mailing schedule has been determined for all counties. The State Board has requested that the Supreme Court expedite its decision on the appeal, in an effort to potentially avoid additional expenditure and complexity in reprinting ballots for the counties, which are responsible for these costs.
The expeditiousness of the Supreme Court's forthcoming decision holds significant fiscal implications — given that a favorable ruling for the State Board might alleviate the financial strain on the counties tasked with ballot-related expenses. Bell's advisement to pause the ballot sending process until a uniform date is established, embodies the State Board's attempt to preserve equality in the voting process for absentee-by-mail voters across North Carolina.
