A federal judge has ordered election officials in North Carolina to violate state law by counting insecure absentee ballots.
U.S. District Judge Richard Myers dealt another blow to fair elections in the important swing state of North Carolina with the ruling.
The case involves a dispute over how to count absentee ballots.
However, the ruling from Myers ensures the case will remain in federal prosecution and guarantees it won’t be resolved before the critical 2024 election.
Myers said in a two-page ruling that the State Board of Elections was correct to remove a lawsuit challenging the state election board’s guidance to federal court, rather than return it to state court as requested by the Republican National Committee (RNC).
Republicans say the board’s guidance goes against a state voting law passed last year.
The law requires absentee ballots to be submitted in a sealed, two-envelope package to keep the ballot and the required identifying information secure.
The guidance states that ballots missing the second, sealed envelope should still be counted.
The RNC, the state’s organization, and a voter filed the suit in late September in state court.
However, the lawsuit was removed and sent to federal court in October.
The board said if it followed the RNC’s demands it would have to violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
There have been multiple legal challenges to North Carolina’s voter rules in the lead-up to the 2024 election.
Last week, the appeals court ruled that the RNC’s challenge to 225,000 overseas voter registrations in the state would also have to be heard in federal court.
The decision effectively blocked any action there.
The only win the RNC has gotten is to prevent students and staff from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from using digital ID to vote.
It makes the state more of a toss-up than it would be.
There are now hundreds of thousands of voters potentially on the rolls who shouldn’t be.
Considering that the last election came down to three states and not more than 25,000 votes in any one of them, this is highly concerning.
RealClearPolitics polling average has Trump up 1.5% in North Carolina with just days until the election.
It’s a bigger margin than he had over President Joe Biden in 2020 when he won the state by 1.34%.
Trump holds a slight lead in almost all of the seven swing states that are most at play in this year’s contest.
However, most of his leads are within a poll’s usual margin of error.
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