As voters prepare to visit the polls, the Jackson County Board of Elections discussed big adjustments at their Sept. 10 meeting.
The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled on Sept. 9 for the removal of former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from all ballots in North Carolina.
North Carolina is the first state in the nation to mail out absentee ballots. Jackson County had the first round of absentee ballots prepared to send out but left unsealed, awaiting word from the State Board of Elections.
Following the decision to remove Robert F. Kennedy from the ballot, Board of Elections director Amanda Allen is working closely with Print Elect, the printing company for ballots, to reprint 20,000 ballots.
Reprinting of the ballots will incur a 25% increase in printing costs because of the quick turnaround and high demand.
The State Board of Elections is working with the Federal Department of Defense to see if there is an option for a waiver of the federal deadline.
Allen says they are still waiting on technical guidance from the state on when ballots will come in. However, her team is working diligently to pull unusable ballots and repackage them in a warehouse away from new incoming ballots.
“The bad news is it’s a kerfuffle. The good news is we are on top of it and we are doing everything we need to do,” said Board of Elections chairman Kirk Stephens.
No absentee ballots have been sent out in North Carolina. As of Sept. 13, the North Carolina State Board of Elections is requiring absentee ballots to be sent to military and overseas voters by Sept. 21 and to general voters on Sept. 24.
The Sept. 10 meeting also discussed voter photo IDs. The Board of Elections can print photo IDs for free, but, you must be registered to vote before applying for a voter ID. The IDs cannot be printed from the end of early voting, Nov. 2 to election day, Nov. 5.
They covered communication channels such as making their website easier for county residents to navigate by linking local precinct information on Jackson County’s website rather than providing links to the state website.
The board unanimously agreed to create a new Facebook page. Allen says this new Facebook page will be the main source of communication with the public on updates and information about elections.
