North Carolina changes rules about mail-in ballot counting

Sept. 4 (UPI) -- North Carolina's State Board of Elections changed the rules for mail-in ballots Friday hours before they were set to be sent out.

The new rules don't affect the ballots or who gets them, but they change the way election officials decide whether to count the ballots .

The board created the new rules via a numbered memo, meant to be a temporary way of changing rules.

The standards passed Friday say that officials must disqualify a ballot if the signature on it doesn't match the name assigned to the application on the return envelope. They also say that only a near relative or legal guardian can deliver the ballot in person if the voter can't, and officials must "spoil" the ballot if more than one of them is returned in an envelope. They also have to disqualify the ballot if the inner envelope isn't sealed properly.

The two Democrats on the board dissented.

Republicans took control of the board of elections last year, the Raleigh News & Observer reported . Controversial legislation removed Gov. Josh Stein's ability to appoint people to the board. Board members also announced an intention to rely less on numbered memos and focus on permanent rulemaking. But their attempts to change the rules permanently were thwarted because state law requires a delay if more than 10 people file objections.

"To my mind, we're doing an end-run around the process that we said we wanted to do," board member Siobhan Millen, a Democrat, said at the meeting. "It may not affect you as you're filling it out, but it affects whether your ballot counts -- that's huge. So, an effort to say this is just a process thing, I think is incorrect."

Stacy Eggers, a Republican board member, defended the new standards, saying, "This is simply guidance, updated guidance, I might add, as to what the board and staff at the county level will do and how they will process things."

The first batch of ballots was promised to be sent out to more than 46,000 voters.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order saying that the states have to hand over lists of every eligible voter to the USPS and requires federal pre-approval of ballot envelope designs. Any ballot mailed to or by a voter missing from the federal list, or using an envelope USPS hasn't approved, could be rejected and not delivered, regardless of whether that voter is fully eligible and registered under state law.

But 25 states have filed suit to prevent the law from going into effect, and a judge blocked it. On Thursday, the Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to allow the process to go into effect for November's elections.