Voting by mail, Election Day holiday recommended for NC’s November election

If the State Board of Elections gets everything it asked for Tuesday from the General Assembly, Election Day will become a state holiday and look very different.

Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell asked lawmakers to consider 15 changes to the state’s elections during the House Select Committee on COVID-19 Continuity of State meeting, explaining that she is planning for a pandemic-infested election.

She is asking lawmakers to clarify in the law whether boards of elections can hold telephonic meetings, a request many local governments have also made. And that will be important as the state board decides how to handle the November election.

Bell said when looking toward November and factoring in that absentee ballots are sent out in September, she has three months to develop a long-term strategy after the legislature’s short session.

One of her first considerations for November is possibly doing all mail-in ballots. But to do that demands drop boxes, mail sorters, workers to open the mail, expensive high-speed scanner equipment, warehouses and a legislative change.

The law requires ballots to be counted in the precinct of the voter. “Looking at that, that change alone is significant,” Bell said.

And Bell said she’s been cautioned that though other states have moved to all-mail elections, she would be asking for a large behavioral change from voters. Right now, fewer than 5% of North Carolina voters mail in their ballots. Under this consideration, Bell said, they would expect a 30-40% voter participation in November.

“Then we’re looking at is that enough to shift from an in-person vote to mail-in voting,” Bell said. “And the states that are already doing this said it took them not months but years to be prepared.”

She said if she holds in-person voting, she’s already seeing requests from precincts to move to other sites. She’s looking at ways to decontaminate voting sites or even find former retail spaces like grocery stores where people can walk inside with a motion sensor instead of touching doors. But no matter what she decides to do, it will cost the board a lot of money.

The board expects to get nearly $14 million from a Help America Vote Act grant and just over $13 million from the CARES Act grant. The first grant deals with the technological side of voting but can be used to help in dealing with COVID-19 during the election. The latter has more stipulations on how it can be used, and Bell hopes to funnel those monies down to the county boards.

In the meantime, Bell asked lawmakers to ease up voting limitations. She asked to allow absentee ballot requests to be sent in by email or fax, and that an online portal be developed to request absentee ballots.

She’s asking that utility bills be allowed in place of driver’s licenses or social security numbers, and that the voting process reduce or eliminate the need for a witness. She also asked that lawmakers consider pre-paying postage for returned absentee ballots.

“A lot of people don’t use our mail system anymore,” Bell said. “They rely on emails or other means of communications and may not have stamps or know what sufficient postage is.” She added that absentee ballots take more than one stamp.

Bell also wants changes that would allow more workers to help on Election Day. Those include making Election Day a state holiday, allowing high school juniors and seniors to volunteer at precincts, increasing wages for poll workers, and not allowing poll workers’ pay to hurt their eligibility for unemployment. Poll workers are often retirees, which is a high-risk population for coronavirus.

She is also seeking to eliminate the requirement that the majority of poll workers live in their precinct. Bell told lawmakers she is still looking at various options for the election and has charged county boards to think of creative, out-of-the box solutions in the meantime.

For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.

This story was originally published April 8, 2020 at 2:22 PM.