Old North News

North Carolina officials continue to disagree over the deadline for accepting mail-in ballots this year, and the U.S. Supreme Court may finally hand down an executive decision. 

The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a 12 to 3 majority on Oct. 20 that the state Board of Elections can set the deadline for counting an absentee ballot nine days after election day, disregarding a state law that designates the deadline as three days after election day. 

The Carolina Journal reported on Oct. 22 that critics of the Appeals Court's ruling said that the Fourth Circuit's justices misinterpreted guidance from the Supreme Court.

"Our country is now plagued by a proliferation of pre-election litigation that creates confusion and turmoil and that threatens to undermine public confidence in the federal courts, state agencies, and the elections themselves," the dissenting judges said, the Carolina Journal reported. The majority "has encouraged others to regard state statutes as little more than advisory and for pre-election litigants fair game."

With hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots already having been cast, the mail-in ballots received before the ruling may be treated differently than those received after it, a fact that violates the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. 

Dissenters are urging plaintiffs to bring the case to the Supreme Court immediately, agreeing with North Carolina Republicans that the Board of Elections abused its power by making rules without consent from the General Assembly.