Agreement reached: Mail-in ballots without witness signatures won't count in NC
Voters can still cast a new ballot. How long the Postal Service will have to return ballots by mail, though, is still in flux.
Posted — UpdatedA number of left-leaning groups targeted the policy in lawsuits filed earlier this year, saying ballots missing witness signatures should be "cured" the same way a number of other problems with mail-in absentee ballots get fixed: By sending voters a certification they can sign, attesting to the validity of their votes, and not requiring new ballots.
Other problems can be fixed by just having the voter fill out an affidavit/certification. Those include if the voter didn't initially sign the ballot's voter certification, if he or she signed in the wrong place, if the witness signed but failed to print his or her name as well, or if the witness did not print his or her address on the ballot envelope.
Attorneys for Republicans pushing back against the state board's initial change have agreed to the new arrangement, according to Stein's letter, which includes an attached email from one of those attorneys consenting.
A handful of other issues are still pending on North Carolina election rules, with the most notable being the date ballots must be returned in order to count.
State law says ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, Nov. 3, and arrive in local offices by Nov. 6. But as part of this same settlement process, the state board tried to extend that to Nov. 12.
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