(The Town Square) — On Tuesday, a lawsuit was filed against North Carolina’s State Board of Elections. The lawsuit is about a memo that told county boards of elections how to handle absentee ballots by mail that doesn’t follow state rules.
The board has been sued six times in 43 days, and four times in 12 months.
The protest was made by Virginia Wasserberg, who is registered in Pasquotank County. The North Carolina Republican Party and the Republican National Committee also signed on. In a release, they say that the state board told the 100 county boards to do things that “do not follow election laws that require absentee ballot security envelopes to be sealed in order for the ballot to count.”
In this case, state law is clear, and it’s too bad that Director Bell is going beyond what she is allowed to do, said state party chairman Jason Simmons of Elections Board Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell. “We will continue to make sure that the elections process is honest and that all laws are followed.”
One of the claims in the lawsuit is that Bell’s instruction in Numbered Memo 2021-03 “issued guidance” and “undermines the protections afforded by the General Assembly’s carefully drafted absentee-voting statutes.” It lists four statutes that say “an absentee ballot must be received by the proper county board of elections in a sealed envelope for the ballot to be counted.”
Plaintiffs say the memo “tells county boards of elections that an absentee ballot can be counted even if it is not sent back in a sealed envelope.”
The lawsuit says that a request for a declaratory decision to the board was turned down before the lawsuit was even filed.
The defendants are Bell, the board as a whole, and each person in their role as a board member. The board is made up of Alan Hirsch, who is the chairman, Jeff Carmon, Siobhan Millen, and two Republicans, Stacy Eggers and Kevin Lewis.
Since July 22, the state board has been in court over rulings about the Justice For All Party and the We The People Party’s access to the ballot, the maintenance of the voter rolls twice, and John F. Kennedy Jr.’s freedom of speech.