Know any 17 year olds who turn 18 in the fall?

This thought is not original with me, but I haven't seen any coverage of it, so I wanted to mention it. Now that same-day registration in North Carolina has been eliminated, the registration deadline is 30 days before the election. In Wake County, some municipal elections are held on October 8th, and some are held on November 5th (and there may be some run-off elections on November 5th if there wasn't an outright winner in some of the October 8th races).

Here's the conundrum: the registration deadline for the October 8th election is September 13th, and the registration deadline for the November 5th deadline is October 11th. What happens to young people who turn 18 between September 13th and October 8th or who turn 18 between November 5th and October 11th?

They can't register till they're 18, but the registration deadline will have passed. They'll be 18 on Election Day, but won't be registered to vote. They can vote a provisional ballot, but unless a directive is received from the State Board of Elections, some counties may allow those ballots and some may not.  This sounds like very real disenfranchisement to me.

The Clay Aiken Voter Registration Hearing

For today's blog post, I thought I'd tell an old war story about one on North Carolina's favorite sons, Clay Aiken.

It was the fall of 2009, and we had just had several bitterly contested Wake County school board elections which resulted in a Republican majority on that board. Mr. Aiken posted his displeasure with the results on his blog. The Republican party did some investigating, and discovered that Mr. Aiken was registered to vote at his mother's house in Wake County, even though he had just built a $2 million+ house in Chatham County.

A challenge to Mr. Aiken's residency in Wake County for voting purposes was properly brought, and we scheduled a hearing. Five minutes before the hearing started, the Wake BOE staff received a faxed notice of withdrawal of Wake County registration from Mr. Aiken. I thought that that should render the hearing moot, but the challenger was insistent on going forward, the media were present, and the county attorney recommended that we proceed with the hearing.

So we did. The main piece of evidence against Mr. Aiken was a five minute interview he had given to a local TV station, walking the reporter through his Chatham County mansion, showing off the kitchen where he fixed meals for friends, pointing to his bedroom door, and playing with his dog, who was romping through the house. It was clearly his residence, and I could barely keep a smile off my face as I watched the video.

So after that, our board deliberated briefly, found that Mr. Aiken was not a resident of Wake County, and directed that the staff remove his name from the rolls (which would have been done anyway, based on the notice he faxed in a few minutes before the hearing started).

We decided not to refer the matter to the District Attorney for prosecution, but saw it as a teachable moment: you can only vote in the precinct in which you are registered, not yo mama's.

Absentee voting by mail

I thought I'd post today on absentee by mail voting in North Carolina. It's also known as "no excuse" voting, meaning that you don't have to have a reason (like being out of town on Election Day) for using that method to vote.

Absentee by mail voting is a multi-step process:

1. There must be a request for an absentee ballot in writing, signed by the voter, near relative, or "verifiable legal guardian."
2. The request is delivered to the county BOE office either by mail or in person (if in person, it can be delivered by a near relative or verifiable legal guardian.)
3. The ballot is either mailed to the voter or handed out if the request is delivered in person.
4. The voter votes the ballot in the presence of a witness, folds it (yes, the statute specifies that it is to be folded!), places it in the ballot container (envelope), and seals the envelope.
5. The voter must sign the outside of the envelope, and the witness must also sign the outside of the envelope, along with the witness' address.
6. The envelope must be timely mailed back to the county BOE office or hand delivered by the voter or a near relative.

Several notes:

1. The county BOE keeps a register of all ballots handed out, whether or not they are returned, and when they are returned.
2. The county BOE also checks the signature of the voter on the outside of the envelope against the voter's signature both on the request for an absentee ballot and on the voter's initial registration form. If, in the opinion of the county BOE staff, there is a question as to whether the signatures match, the issue will be brought before the county BOE at their next meeting.
3. There are specific definitions as to who qualifies as a near relative.
4. There are also procedures for how the voter is to mark the ballot or receive help in marking the ballot if he or she cannot mark it on their own.
5. Ballots can be disqualified not only if the signatures don't match, but also if a witness fails to sign, or if a witness fails to list his or her address.
6. All of the determinations by the county BOE are made prior to the opening of the envelope to retrieve the ballot. If the ballot is disqualified, our practice in Wake County was to direct the staff to try to contact the voter to let him or her know the ballot had been disqualified. The voter could then choose to request another absentee ballot (if there was time), go to an early voting site (also known as a one-stop site), or vote in his or her precinct on Election Day.
7. Once an absentee by mail ballot is approved, the fact that the voter has voted is marked in the computer records so that when the poll books are printed just before Election Day, the poll book will show that the voter has already voted.

What do Funeral Homes Have to do with Voting?

No, it's not that they allow dead people to vote.

But imagine how you'd feel if, while making arrangements for the funeral of a loved one, the funeral home director said, "Oh, by the way, here's one more form that the legislature has encouraged us to give you. It's a form to remove your loved one from the voting rolls."

Here's the text of the new provision:

"§ 90‑210.25C.  Notification forms for deceased voters.

(a)        At the time funeral arrangements are made, a funeral director or funeral service licensee is encouraged to make available to near relatives of the deceased a form upon which the near relative may report the status of the deceased voter to the board of elections of the county in which the deceased was a registered voter.

(b)       A funeral director or funeral service licensee may obtain forms for reporting the status of deceased voters from the county board of elections."

This "encouragement" strikes me as inappropriate at best and callous at worst. There is a time and place for everything, and in my opinion, a funeral home is not the place to be discussing removing a voter from the rolls, any more than you would discuss closing bank accounts or canceling credit cards there.

Dead voters are already removed from the rolls monthly, when each county BOE receives a list of the recently deceased from the Department of Health and Human Services. This list is based on information supplied by death certificates which it received in the previous month. Once the county BOE staff finds an exact name and date of birth match, the name is removed from the rolls. 

Two (Three) Trips To Have Your Votes Counted

Under North Carolina's new voter ID law, otherwise properly registered voters without an acceptable form of ID will have to vote a provisional ballot. Reasons could include not having a photo ID that falls within a few limited categories, but it also could be something as simple as having an expired driver's license, an expired passport, or a Veteran's ID card more than eight years old.

If a voter is required to vote a provisional ballot, he then has to bring an acceptable form of photo ID to the county BOE office prior to canvass (the official certification of the election results), ten days after the election. But before he can do that, he has to get the acceptable form of photo ID that he didn't have on Election Day. That means, at a minimum, a trip to DMV to renew a license. And then another trip to the county BOE office.

In Wake County, the BOE office is on the corner of Salisbury and Davie streets. There are about ten parking spots (with meters) on the street, almost always taken. There is also a pay parking deck about  block and a half away.

It all adds up. One trip to vote on Election Day (with about 15-20 minutes to vote provisionally and receive an explanation of how to correct the photo ID problem), one trip to get the correct photo ID (which will also cost time and money), and one trip to the county BOE office (which will also cost time, and in many cases, money as well).

I wonder what the original colonists would think........

Votes That Won't Be Counted

Under the new voter ID law just passed in North Carolina, thousands of votes that used to be counted will not be counted. Which ones? Surprisingly, it will be every vote on a ballot that is cast in the wrong precinct, even if the voter shows proper ID and receives the right ballot.

Under the old law, if a voter came into the wrong precinct but was otherwise properly registered to vote in the county, he was given the choice as to whether to go to his correct precinct and vote there, or vote a provisional ballot in the wrong precinct. As poll workers, we always encouraged the voter to go to his correct precinct, but sometimes the voter would say, "Oh, I don't care about all those little races. I just want to vote for President, or Governor, or Senator."

If the voter insisted on voting a provisional ballot in the wrong precinct, he would be given a ballot style that most closely matched the ballot style he would have received if he had gone to his correct precinct. His voted ballot would be placed in a provisional ballot envelope, the staff of the county BOE would then research what ballot the voter should have received, and then create a "dummy" ballot showing the races the voter was eligible to vote in. After the county BOE approved the partial counting of the ballot, the provisional envelope would be opened, and the votes for candidates in the races in which the voter voted which showed up on the "dummy" ballot would be counted.

Now, under the law recently passed, none of the votes on a provisional ballot will count if the voter is not in his correct precinct. What is the rationale for not counting the votes in races that appear on EVERY ballot, such as President, Governor, or US Senator? I honestly can't think of one. And I believe this provision may run afoul of the North Carolina Constitution. ("Every person born in the United States and every person who has been naturalized, 18 years of age, and possessing the qualifications set out in this Article, shall be entitled to vote at any election by the people of the State, except as herein otherwise provided."....and "Removal from one precinct, ward, or other election district to another in this State shall not operate to deprive any person of the right to vote in the precinct, ward, or other election district from which that person has removed until 30 days after the removal.")

Fun side note: There were occasional happy instances when a voter in the wrong precinct was able to receive the correct ballot style anyway. That situation sometimes occurred when a voter went to a nearby precinct (but nevertheless the wrong one) to vote. No more!

One Vote at a Time

I worry about how much longer it will take each voter to vote under NC's new law.

Under the old law, a voter walked into the precinct or early voting site, approached the registration table, and stated his name and address. The poll worker found the voter in the poll book and either peeled off a label and stuck it on an authorization to vote or tore out a pre-printed authorization to vote (ATV). In either case, the voter had to sign the ATV (attesting that his name and address were correct), the poll worker then initialed it and handed it back to the voter, and then the voter took it to the ballot table and exchanged the ATV for a ballot.

Under the new law, the voter comes in and approaches the registration table with his ID....let's say for simplicity's sake, that it is his NC driver's license. The precinct worker has to look at the expiration date to make sure it hasn't expired, and then has to compare the picture on the license to the person standing in front of him. Only then can the poll worker go to the poll book and find the voter's registration.

The two extra steps of looking for the expiration date and matching the photo to the voter will certainly take a minimum of 15 seconds, and perhaps double or triple that. It might not sound like a lot, but when you multiply that times 100 or more voters an hour, that's a lot.

But wait, there's more....the new law does away with straight party voting. That means that the voter has to vote in each individual race. And that means more time spent in the booth, or at a table, or on the floor, or on the edge of the stage in the multipurpose room in the elementary school. And more time spent in the precinct means more crowding, more waiting by the voters behind you, and more parking spots being used for longer periods of time.

And with eight days cut off of early voting (a week at the beginning and one day at the end), the time available to vote is more compressed.

I worry, and I worry, and I worry.