How USPS changes will affect North Carolinians in the upcoming election
Construction crews uninstall United States Postal Service boxes, a familiar site across many American cities and towns over the last thirty days. Source.
During a recent Fox Business interview, President Trump admitted to stymieing the United States post office by holding emergency funding for the United States Postal Service hostage. He is also halting election aid with the explicit intent to prevent several states from boosting mail-in voting capacity for the upcoming election. Amid the global pandemic, many Americans are concerned about their capacity to safely vote in-person come November. Trump has stated that the basis of this attack is that increased mail-in ballots would significantly benefit Democrats and lead to widespread voter fraud. Experts report, though, that there is no sufficient evidence that voting by mail would increase fraud or even advantage one political party. But still, the cuts to the Postal Service persist.
North Carolina has a sordid past with fair elections, and citizens have expressed concern about whether their votes can maintain integrity through mail. In mid-August, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein joined a multi-state lawsuit against the USPS and postmaster general Louis DeJoy for the recent cuts to the USPS program. Though DeJoy announced that he would suspend any plans to further dismantle the post office until after the election, AG Stein wants to ensure that the policies already enacted are reversed and that no further action to dismantle the post office will be taken in coming months. Officials are estimating that up to 40% of North Carolinians will vote by mail in the upcoming election. Already, the number of absentee ballots requested this cycle is 10 times what it was in 2016.
Additionally, the cuts to the postal system are particularly impactful to rural communities across the state, where as many as 16,000 absentee ballots have already been requested. Stein noted that the threats to the post office go beyond the election, as many rural North Carolinians rely on the postal service to get prescriptions, social security checks, and small business operations.
In the last two years, North Carolina has garnered national attention for contentious voting legislation more than once. In 2018, a constitutional amendment passed that would require voters to present a photo ID in order to vote, though it was blocked by a federal judge before it could be implemented in the 2020 election. In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the NC GOP-led legislature, that North Carolina would not have to redraw district lines after a lower court ruled that the initial lines redrawn favored Republican voters. Currently, a lawsuit for election reforms to bolster capacity ahead of November is circulating the North Carolina court system. It has had little success, mostly under Courts’ contentions that the pandemic does not pose a significant risk to lowering voter turnout. However, one notable adoption of a law by a U.S. District Court Judge approved that absentee ballot voters will have the option to correct their ballot if it has mistakes. This will address the 15% of mail-in ballots that were rejected in the primary for errors, which is significant because voters of color are significantly more likely to have their ballots rejected.
The spokesman for the Board of Elections, Patrick Gannon, told the Charlotte Observer that the office is already “blowing up” with questions about how mail-in ballots will function in the election. North Carolina has many more options for voting in the upcoming election than many states. In North Carolina, voters do not need an “excuse” to vote by mail. A platform to request absentee ballots and track the mailing status of your ballot online will go live on September 1st. You must request your ballot by October 27th at 5 p.m. and submit by November 3rd, but officials recommend leaving a week to ten days for your ballot to arrive and another week to ten days to send it back.