No Witness Signature? Those Ballots Won’t Be Counted In North Carolina

This is a very strange article from WRAL on the way the law is applied

Agreement reached: Mail-in ballots without witness signatures won’t count in NC

The State Board of Elections will go back to its old way of dealing with absentee ballots mailed in without a witness signature: The voter will have to fill out a new ballot and get a signature for his or her vote to count.

The decision came over the weekend, and Attorney General Josh Stein’s office informed one of the two courts overseeing various lawsuits filed over the procedure, and a handful of others, that the policy shift would take effect Monday.

A number of left-leaning groups targeted the policy in lawsuits filed earlier this year, saying ballots missing witness signatures should be “cured” the same way a number of other problems with mail-in absentee ballots get fixed: By sending voters a certification they can sign, attesting to the validity of their votes, and not requiring new ballots.

The State Board of Elections agreed to the change a few weeks ago as part of a broader lawsuit settlement, but Republican leaders cried foul, saying the change subverted state law by allowing absentee ballots to count without witness signaturees. That triggered more lawsuits and a back and forth that was resolved, on this issue at least, by a letter Stein’s office sent out Sunday with a new State Board of Elections memo attached explaining the procedure to county elections offices.

Those offices have been holding on to ballots missing witness signatures, awaiting a decision. Now they will “spoil” ballots without signatures, meaning they won’t count, and the affected voters will have an opportunity to fill out another ballot. This may be thousands of ballots, but a small percentage of the total ballots cast.

Not sure what the agreement is, or how it is really going back to the “old way”, or why there’s a problem with the GOP “crying foul”: the law is very specific that a witness signature is required on all mail in ballots. It’s not that hard.

Other problems can be fixed by just having the voter fill out an affidavit/certification. Those include if the voter didn’t initially sign the ballot’s voter certification, if he or she signed in the wrong place, if the witness signed but failed to print his or her name as well, or if the witness did not print his or her address on the ballot envelope.

Attorneys for Republicans pushing back against the state board’s initial change have agreed to the new arrangement, according to Stein’s letter, which includes an attached email from one of those attorneys consenting.

It’s not really any sort of agreement, it’s really the way the NC law works. Seriously, just take the time to do it correctly. What’s so difficult in getting a proper witness signature, and signing it correctly yourself? One has to wonder why Democrats were fighting so hard to allow ballots without the signatures.

Meanwhile

Supreme Court Rules Pennsylvania Can Count Ballots Received After Election Day

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that election officials in Pennsylvania can count absentee ballots received as late as the Friday after Election Day so long as they are postmarked by Nov. 3.

The court declined without comment to take up one of the highest-profile election law cases in the final stretch before Election Day. Pennsylvania Republicans had sought to block the counting of late-arriving ballots, which the state’s Supreme Court had approved last month.

Republicans sought the emergency stay, arguing that it is up to the state’s legislature — not the court — to set rules for how elections are conducted. They also said the court’s ruling could allow ballots cast after Election Day to be counted.

The court’s most conservative justices, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas said they would have agreed to the stay request. But Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s three most liberal members to reject the request.

Again, the media is attempting to paint the GOP as suppressing votes, in this article and so many more. And giving you bad information. The reality is

As Breitbart News reported last month, “The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled … that ballots received three days after Election Day will still be counted — even if there is no evidence they were postmarked on time.”

SCOTUS Blog writes

A deadlocked Supreme Court on Monday let stand a lower-court ruling that requires Pennsylvania election officials to count absentee ballots received within three days after Election Day, Nov. 3, even if they are not postmarked. In two brief orders issued shortly after 7 p.m., the justices denied, without explanation, a request by Republicans to put the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruling on hold. Four justices – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – indicated that they would have granted the Republicans’ request.

Pa. law is clear that they MUST be postmarked by the 3rd or dropped off by 8pm on the 3rd. Period. Yet, here’s the Democratic party suing to void the rules and John Roberts siding with them yet again.