Expand voting opportunities, don't limit them

North Carolina just experienced the most successful election – in terms of voter participation and administration – ever. So, why are the General Assembly’s leaders obsessed with fixing problems that didn’t occur and not with finding ways to build on what’s worked so well?

This nation was founded 245 years ago under a simple proposition: citizens should pick the people who govern them.

That basic premise doesn’t seem good enough for the legislature’s leaders. They want to be picking the folks they want voting. They’ve done it by extreme gerrymandering. Now they want to do it by engineering when people can vote and by placing limits on the kinds of resources that state and local elections officials can draw upon to accommodate voters in casting their ballots.

The latest approach is to curtail when mail-in absentee ballots must be received by local boards of elections. Current state law requires any mail-in ballots to be postmarked on Election Day AND be received by the local board of elections within three days – unless they are sent from those in the military service or overseas. Those ballots must also be postmarked on Election Day but can be received up to when the local board completes it canvass of all votes – generally about week to 10 days after Election Day. (During the 2020 elections amid the current COVID-19 pandemic and concerns about the abilities of the Postal Service led to the extension for receipt of all mail in ballots – a move approved by the U.S. Supreme Court.)

Read more: https://www.wral.com/editorial-expand-voting-opportunities-don-t-limit-them/19664866/