DARE COUNTY, North Carolina — Just days ago, the shelves at the Dare County Board of Elections office were filled with tens of thousands of ballots for the upcoming November election. They now sit in sealed boxes and will ultimately need to be destroyed. This comes after the North Carolina Supreme Court gave the green light to take Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s name off the state ballot.
“By late Monday night, we knew that the Supreme Court had decided that we did have to reprint. So, we were preparing in advance of that to keep things timely," said Kelly McPherson, director of the Dare County Board of Elections.
Election officials in all 100 North Carolina counties are now waiting on reprinted ballots to be delivered for the upcoming election, that includes absentee ballots that were expected to be mailed out last week.
“We've ordered 39,000 ballots both times, so they should be coming soon, but we're not exactly sure when they will get here," said McPherson.
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While it’s not known when the ballots will arrive – the North Carolina State Board of Elections explains the next steps. On their website they say they’re preparing for the possibility the state can’t meet the 45 day deadline in federal law for sending out military and overseas ballots to voters. The board said discussions are underway with the U.S. Department of Defense for a potential waiver of that deadline.
The expectation in Dare County was that around 500 absentee ballots be mailed out on Friday September 6th, but McPherson said they decided to hold off while waiting for the Supreme Court's decision, which ultimately led to the reprinting.
“We have been told not to issue any ballots at this time and the state wants all of the ballots to roll out across the state uniformly so we will wait to be told what date," said McPherson.
McPherson estimated the cost for the reprinting, coding and layout to be between $15,000 and $20,000 that the county will need to pay.
“So the hardship is more on the voters than the staff, in my opinion, because they're waiting for absentee ballots that they were expected to have, and then also the cost," said McPherson.
Residents don’t have to worry that this transaction will have any impact on their everyday lives, it just might need to be discussed at the county level when they work on the budget at a future meeting.
Election officials now just have to wait for the new shipment but reaffirmed that they are committed to making sure each person has the resources they need to vote in the upcoming election.
"We just want the Dare County voters to know that we are committed to having fair and efficient and timely elections and that we're going to do everything we can to make sure that this process moves forward, even with these little hiccups, and so we want them to have all the confidence that we are going to take care of them and do everything that we can to make sure that everyone gets their ballot and is able to vote," said McPherson.
News 3 will continue to keep our viewers updated on when absentee ballots will be distributed. Early voting begins in Dare County on October 17.
