Absentee Ballots

A flap over North Carolina absentee ballots in the 2020 election has resurfaced at the General Assembly as Republicans gave final approval to legislation limiting Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein’s ability to enter legal settlements. The bill is now heading to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s desk following a party-line House vote on Wednesday.

A key subject in a North Carolina ballot fraud investigation was supposed to be sentenced on largely unrelated federal crimes, but that got delayed because he was hospitalized. An attorney for Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. told WRAL-TV he was flown from one southeastern North Carolina hospital to another on Wednesday, hours before his scheduled sentencing hearing in Raleigh.

Mail-in absentee ballots in North Carolina would have to be received by the day of the election, under a Republican-backed bill that cleared a divided Senate committee on Wednesday.

Democrats voted by mail in the 2020 election in record numbers. But what about those late-arriving mail ballots — the ones that were postmarked by Election Day but arrived up to nine days afterward in North Carolina? Who cast those ballots? WFAE's Steve Harrison takes a look at the data for some surprising revelations.

Some North Carolina Republicans are taking a different tack on legislative efforts to move up mail-in absentee balloting deadlines by also giving citizens more time to vote on the front end. But Democrats say the idea still treats voters unequally.

As Republicans nationwide have filed bills to restrict voting, the North Carolina GOP filed the “Election Integrity Act” last week, its first election-related bill.

The law will make dramatic alterations to Georgia's absentee voting rules, adding new identification requirements, moving back the request deadline and other changes.

North Carolina Republican senators peppered the state's top elections administrator on Tuesday with questions about a legal settlement that altered rules for the fall election, accusing her of carrying out unlawful balloting changes and reducing voter confidence.

Absentee ballots in North Carolina would have to be received by county election officials by Election Day or the primary election date to be counted in legislation filed on Thursday by state Senate Republicans.

Rule changes amid the COVID-19 pandemic led to controversy and legal challenges.