Name: New absentee ballot rules proposed for NC
Uploaded: 2021-03-31T10:37:00-0400
Duration: 1199277
Description: Sponsors discuss proposed legislation to put new deadlines on absentee voting in North Carolina.

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Sponsors discuss proposed legislation to put new deadlines on absentee voting in North Carolina.

There's often a tension between free, fair and secure as we come out of the 2020 election. There's absolutely been some erosion of confidence in the electoral system nationwide. And even right here in North Carolina, everybody is undoubtedly heard about some of that, UH, either from friends from constituents from the News and recent Civitas Lock Poll confirmed that 40% of North Carolinians do not trust the outcome of the 2020 election election. Integrity polled for North Carolinians is the second highest concern, behind only the economy. I believe that's a call to action. So later this this morning, the Election Integrity Act will be heard in the Senate Elections Committee, and I'd like to talk about that bill as well as another dealing with secret settlements and then answer any questions that you may have about, uh, about those bills. So quite the disinformation campaign has been launched about these bills, and, uh, many of us have seen sort of innumerable emails this morning. So it's really important with respect to these proposed policies that I be crystal clear about what they are and what they are and that you please attempt to listen through the noise to what they truly are and what they truly are not. And it's important to understand the details. Details matter. So first, the Election Integrity Act, this again will be the bill in committee later this morning. You know, our entire system of government is based on fair elections. It's how we select the people who will govern us. Obviously, fraud in an election like what occurred in 2018 in the congressional race undermines that confidence. But distrust and suspicion in the electoral process also undermine confidence, and that can be just as damaging. So our goal with this legislation is to work to restore that trust in crafting the legislation, we had to answer the question. What does it take to restore confidence? How do we instill confidence in others? And some say we should do away with early voting. Election day is election day. Some say we should do away with no excuses. Absentee ballots. I do not believe that we need to go that far to restore confidence in North Carolina's elections, and Senate Bill 3 26 relates to specific concerns that we actually saw here in North Carolina in our electoral process, and it has four main points. Ban private. Third party donations to the Board of Elections require absentee ballots to be in by the close of business on election Day. Change the deadline for requesting absentee ballots to make it almost impossible for postal postal delay to cause a ballot to be received late and finally fund a mobile voter i D unit so that all eligible voters can have a free i d. So let's take each provision one at a time. First band third party donations to the Board of Elections. Private interests. Giving money to the people responsible for administering an election creates, at a minimum the perception of a major conflict. For example, Facebook's foundation paid temporary employees at county boards of elections. That raises the question. Who is their boss? Is it the county, or is it the the foundation that paid their salary? So counting the votes needs to be free from any perception of conflict, especially from third party donors. Second, require absentee ballots to be in by the close of business on election day. Now, North Carolina is the first state in the nation to send out absentee ballots, usually 60 days before an election and unlike many other states, are absentee. Voting is no excuse required. You can request an absentee ballot for any reason or no reason at all, and we allow voters multiple options for turning in their absentee ballot, either by mailing it back in or by delivering it to county elections office or to an early voting site. None of this would change under this bill. North Carolina would continue to have among the most free absentee voting systems in the country. Everybody knows what election day is. It's when the votes are in all in and counting begins. It just makes sense that Election Day would be the election deadline. Every day that passes without a declared winner just breeds suspicions and conspiracy theories in people's minds. And that's just not healthy. In 2020 in North Carolina, winner wasn't declared for the president or for U. S Senate for many, many days, even though those races were not that close. We were one of the last states in the country to have declared winners for those races. Ideally, we'd have a winner for every election on election night. Many states do sometimes in close races Obviously that's not possible, especially if there's a recount or some other issue. But requiring that at least all the votes be in on Election Day helps minimize the delay in declaring a winner and for the most part, helps wrap up the process more quickly. Some have alleged that moving a deadline by three days is somehow voter suppression. Uh, let's talk about that, as I said earlier in North Carolina is the first state in the nation to send out absentee ballots, usually 60 days before an election. And unlike many other states, it's no excuses. An election has got to have a deadline, period. We have to have a deadline associated with an election. If there were no deadline to cast ballots, then ballots would never be counted. It's self evident that an election deadline must exist. Alright, So given that when should information about the deadline be communicated to voters and that we all agree what should begin as far away from the next election as possible so that voters have a chance to prepare accordingly? Well, the next federal election is not for 21 months, and so we're about as far away as we could possibly get. So we need a deadline. We're very, very far away from anybody bumping up against that deadline and again anytime during that 60 days, you're certainly welcome to receive your ballot. Uh, so they were talking about people that wait till the last minute. That's what the deadline is. Um and, uh, we have lots of time to inform and engage people on the fact that a deadline does exist for them to request an absentee ballot. So for the majority of states, that election deadline is election day. And that's what I'm proposing here. President Biden's own home state of Delaware has the ballot receipt deadline on Election Day. The same is true for Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and the list goes on. And that group of states can hardly be described as deep red. So do those making voter suppression accusations about this bill also believe that these states are vote suppressors and I suggest you the answer is obviously no. So let's consider another point. In fact, the elections director told the Senate last week, the Republicans actually benefited more than Democrats from the extreme extension of the ballot receipt deadline in 2020. So ironically, as ironic as it sounds, more Republican ballots were submitted between days three and nine than Democratic ballots, So it would seem that there are two realities for you to choose from. One is that my bill is a partisan grab that so poorly executed that it accidentally harms Republicans. Or that I'm telling you the truth about our motives here, which is people do distrust the process that occurred last year and making Election Day. The election deadline will help repair at least some of that trust. Now let's talk about the third tenet of the bill, which would change the deadline for requesting absentee ballots. There are there was a lot of concern expressed last year that some people would wait until the last minute to request an absentee ballot. And because the ballot requests deadline was so close to the election day, there was a very real chance that people couldn't get their requested ballot and get it back in by the deadline, so that created a host of problems. But this provision in this bill minimizes the chance of that happening by moving back the absentee request deadline to 14 days before the Election day, and that would make it almost impossible for postal to let for postal delay to result in an uncounted ballot. And finally, the bill funds $5 million for a mobile I D unit so that all eligible voters can get the I. D. They need to participate in an election. Now full disclosure that five million may come out because appropriations will be handling the budget. And we're just gonna we're gonna be directing them to fund this as necessary to make this a reality. But this mobile ID and funding the mobile I d. Eliminates any excuse that there's some sort of barrier to people receiving an I. D. It takes that issue off the table, and the email disinformation campaign about this bill essentially calls this provision racist, and it is the opposite. It enables those who cannot otherwise obtain an ID to vote. That argument should be saved for some other state, but it does not apply here. And by the way, the voters of North Carolina amended our Constitution to require photo voter i D. And the This provision of this bill will ensure that no one is disenfranchised because of voter photo I d. And by the way, the administration of that mandate will be by the governor's own board of elections. So if anybody should be motivated, right, at least the perception would be motivated to make sure every eligible voter has an i d. It would be the governor himself and his board of elections. So I think we've eliminated any any taint with respect to our desire to get everyone a photo ideas so that they can vote. And that's it. That's everything in the bill. Uh, and again, details, matter, please cut through the noise of the, um, this information campaign and ask yourself what we're actually doing here and what we're actually, um, not not doing in this bill. So judge for yourselves, whether these changes are reasonable and logical and before I take questions, just want to add a couple of points on the second bill that would prohibit sue and settle schemes that through our election in chaos last year again, something we observed behavior that actually happened in North Carolina. And the goal here with this prohibition on sue and settle is to prohibit a future elections director from executing a mid election law change via secret settlement with political allies. On the one hand, our elections director defended against making any changes in elections process when petitioned by the blind and visually impaired, saying that defending that case on the basis and I'll quote these changes would need to be made while voting is actually happening, which presents particular risk that could jeopardize the ongoing election process. But simultaneously, she is working with our attorney general and Marc Elias, Democrat lawyer, uh, national lawyer, to change provisions of our voting law, arguably to violate provisions of our voting law. To accommodate the Democratic Party's top lawyer, she tripled the post election day window within which ballots may be received and she eliminated the effectively eliminated the absentee ballot witness requirement. So secretly negotiating with your political allies to change election laws while voting is already underway should never happen, regardless of party. The the elections director and the attorney general, frankly behaved so egregiously and and improperly that they've lost the trust of many voters and many legislators. By the way, you might want to consider asking your attorney general our attorney General why he didn't recuse himself when he was on the ballot in his reelection effort could benefit from the secret settlement. Our elections director wouldn't even acknowledge that she changed the law last year. The fact that federal judges and reporters have upheld for months that she, in fact, did attempt to change the law. And as Senator Raven so succinctly put it in the recent elections oversight committee meeting, our elections director didn't just change the law. She broke the law. This bill will prevent sue and settle schemes in the future. And with that, I'm happy to take any questions. Yes. Okay. Valid deadline argument from that podium. Similar to what you take the phrase from you like election. And when tell people their ballots into the board elections by Election Day, aren't you basically putting a deadline on? Uh huh. Ballot colors, then Election day. So therefore, they actually are work in which to make up their minds, whether or not to look. Um, yeah, but it's an advantage to them. We've created the opportunity to vote early. We've created the opportunity to to vote. We have 17 days of early voting in this state. 18, including election day. We have no excuses. Absentee ballot voting. They're available some 60 days before the election. We're setting a deadline 21 months before the deadline is relevant to the 2022 election. Uh, everybody should be on notice. I mean, why aren't community organizers saying mark your calendar? Ask for your absentee ballot before this date, Anytime before this date? Uh, and you won't run up against the deadline. We gotta have deadlines. And, you know, do I think the dynamic that's created by Senator Blues question sort of ignores the fact that we have some of the most liberal early voting and absentee ballot voting laws in the nation. All the would you consider, Let's say, like you said, the 60 day click, they start releasing balance, intervening in consideration as a compromise to let me just say broadly, I'd be happy to talk to Senator blew the Democratic Party leaders on this issue any time they have questions or requests and if they are common sense requests, Uh, you know, I'm happy to entertain those. They haven't approached me yet. We're happy to have those discussions. We've had bipartisan election bills in the past. In fact, we're operating another 2019 bipartisan election bill and we should be able to have another bipartisan this. This should become a bipartisan bill. I mean, the substance of this is not offensive. It doesn't disenfranchise, it doesn't suppress. It just takes what we actually observed in North Carolina that created mistrust, distrust and uncertainty about our process. And we're taking those vulnerabilities that we actually saw not hypothetical. And we're just going to shore up those leaks in the system. That's all this bill does. Yes, this trust to what extent was it that were in place for last year? They created this versus leaders of your party, telling rampant fraud, trust the process and that screen we've talked about the conduct that I'm pointing to here, which is the conduct of our elections director. Um, you know, the General Assembly was a named defendant in the case that she purported to settle on behalf of North Carolinians. But it was a partisan settlement which ignored one of the name defendants. That can't happen, and that's again, irrespective of party. That just cannot happen. So it's those that type of conduct in the uncertainty, adding adding six days to allow ballots to come in after election day. Six additional days we were at three. Um, it just breeds suspicion. So I'm focused on North Carolina. Not not anything that might have been said nationally. Um, and we just need to fix those things that need to be fixed and restore confidence and trust. And that's what we're trying to do here. Yeah, talking. Describing polls among voters more? Uh huh. Like what happened nationally in the state. I mean, I understand your concern about all speech, right? Pretty run election, as far as I know here. Record turnout. 5.5 million people voting very few reports of problems. Was this more replied, addressing the national? Or is it more about about fight that you have transpired regarding the rules over right? It's about weaknesses in the process we actually observed in North Carolina. And let's be clear, our elections director had nothing to do with the turnout in North Carolina. I mean, that's that's the candidates that create the desire to turn out and vote. Her job was to administer an election. Instead of sticking to her job, she changed the sub substantive law. And since she was settling with the Democratic National Lawyer one can fairly assume it was for partisan advantage and for no other reason she would deny that. But that is that is a source of suspicion for many voters. Um, and that's what we're trying to address. We're going to clean a few things up again. None of them suppressed votes. None of them disenfranchised. It just It just cleans up part of the process that we saw vulnerabilities in this past election. Any other questions describe the process going forward? Yeah. So kick back through it there. So no more third party donations. Oh, so we'll have it for discussion only today, immediately following this press conference in committee. And, uh, we expect a couple of amendments. We we we know we're going to clean up a couple of things like take out the specific five million and just direct appropriations to appropriate the necessary funds to make that provision a reality. Um, and again, I'm happy to entertain discussions with those who think they can make the bill better. We're always open to those discussions. Okay? Yeah. Break for your guess is as good as mine. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing firmly established on the process. Forward. All right, well, thank you all very much.

Chad Flowers

Matthew Burns

New absentee ballot rules proposed for NC

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