BUNCOMBE COUNTY, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Recent court rulings in North Carolina have sent county election staff scrambling to meet a federal deadline for sending out absentee ballots.

It all started when Democrat-turned Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropped out of the presidential race in late August and endorsed former President Donald Trump. His name remained on North Carolina’s ballots under the ‘We the People Party,’ which he later requested be taken off. After much back and forth from the North Carolina State Board of Elections, state Court of Appeals, and finally the state Supreme Court, Kennedy Jr.’s name will no longer be on the ballot in North Carolina.

The state Board of Elections says county boards were prepared to send off ballots on Sept. 6 — which is the state law deadline to begin absentee voting — before the Court of Appeals paused this. Now, county election staff must work to reprint these absentee ballots. The exact date when all 100 counties will have new ballots ready to send to absentee voters is uncertain, the state board says. When that occurs, all counties will begin sending ballots on the same day in order to make sure voters across the state have the same amount of time to cast their ballots.

“Because of the order to reprint ballots, the State Board is preparing for the possibility that North Carolina cannot meet the 45-day deadline in federal law — Sept. 21 — for distributing military and overseas ballots to voters,” a Sept. 10 press release from the state board says. “The State Board has begun discussions with the U.S. Department of Defense to seek a potential waiver of that deadline, if ballots are not ready in all counties by that date.”

More than 2.9 million individual ballots had been printed before the court order, the state board says.

By the numbers: Buncombe County reprinting efforts

On Tuesday, Elections Director Corinne Duncan took to social media to update the community on the matters at hand. She assured the public that as soon as they receive guidance from the state board as to what day they can mail out the reprinted ballots, they will update residents.

Voters don’t need to request any new ballots, unless they need to change an address or any other information as such.

As of Sept. 10, Duncan said more than 6,000 voters in Buncombe County had requested absentee ballots.

Answering some questions from the media, Duncan said Buncombe County will have to reprint about 5,300 ballots, which will cost about $28,500. Much of this will cover the cost of labor.

Duncan said every county reprints ballots differently. In Buncombe County, they need an electronic file to reprint the ballots, which they are working to obtain. Then, they’ll have to wait for further guidance from the state.

“The state board’s objective here is to make sure that all counties are being uniform, so that’s an important thing in North Carolina, it’s part of why we have a state system,” Duncan said on Tuesday. “That’s the priority, is that we make sure that we all send out at the same time and voters have a similar amount of time to vote.”

Duncan emphasized that the reprinting efforts would be quite the undertaking.

“The absentee ballot processing is a significant activity,” she said. “It’s going to take a lot of labor, that’s a large part of that cost, is the labor. We’ll have a 25-person team in here for those days, processing ballots to get them out on time.”

She added that they must do logic and accuracy testing that requires having the correct ballots.

“There’s many, many things that go into elections, so we’re going to have to adjust and do the best we can as we go through that process,” Duncan said.

The state board has asked county boards to strictly separate and move to storage all ballots that had been printed with the ‘We The People Party’ line on them. This is to avoid any possibility that the wrong ballots are sent to voters, according to state officials.

Local reaction

Kathie Kline, chair of the Buncombe County Democratic Party, shared the following statement regarding the absentee ballot issues:

“RFK, Jr. used misleading tactics and then fought a wasteful legal battle to get ON the ballot. Now he’s tying up our courts again to get OFF that same ballot.

RFK, Jr.’s actions burden election officials and add unnecessary cost to taxpayers to print millions of replacement ballots. Absentee-by-mail voters, whose ballots were to arrive this week, will lose much of the time they need to navigate the newly complicated absentee voting process.

Clearly the GOP believes that getting RFK, Jr. off the ballot will help elect their candidate. The Republican-dominated NC Appeals and Supreme Courts seem inclined to bend towards that outcome. That’s yet another reason why we’re so dedicated to electing Democratic judges this year — to restore fairness by reducing the overwhelming majority of partisan Republican judges on our courts.”

The Buncombe County Republican Party did not respond to an email for comment by the time of this publication.

2024 general election dates and deadlines

Here are key dates and deadlines for the 2024 general election in North Carolina:

  • Oct. 11: Voter registration deadline (5 p.m.).*
  • Oct. 17: In-person early voting begins; same-day registration available.
  • Oct. 29: Absentee ballot request deadline (5 p.m.).*
  • Nov. 2: In-person early voting ends (3 p.m.).
  • Nov. 5: General Election Day.
  • Nov. 5: Absentee ballot return deadline (7:30 p.m.).*

*Voter registration and absentee voting deadlines are different for military and overseas citizen voters.

CLICK HERE to view more information on the Buncombe County Election Services website.