• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Events
  • Civic Ed
  • Campaign Finance
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • Independent Voter News
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Voting>
  3. vote by mail>

Absentee voting rights push yields a partial win — and three new suits

Bill Theobald
May 26, 2020
South Carolina voters

South Carolina voters who want to cast an absentee ballot will not be required to get a witness to sign their ballots, a judge has ruled.

Barcroft Media/Getty Images

Advocates for easing restrictions on absentee voting during the coronavirus pandemic have won a split decision in federal court in South Carolina.

A judge on Monday barred the state from requiring a witness signature on mail-in ballots for the congressional and legislative primaries in two weeks, but she said the state could require those ballots to arrive by the time the polls close.

The ruling was the most important news over the holiday weekend for the cause of easier voting this year, which also brought fresh lawsuits challenging a diverse set of rules in North Carolina, Michigan and New York. These are the latest developments:


South Carolina

Judge J. Michelle Childs ruled that getting close enough to another person to obtain a countersignature on an absentee ballot would subject voters — especially those living alone — to an improper risk of Covid-19 infection in the runup to the June 9 primaries and subsequent runoffs. But she declined to strike down the witness requirement as unconstitutional.

The state Election Commission said the witness rule was a proper guard against fraud, even after the panel's executive director conceded in a letter to GOP Gov. Henry McMaster this spring the rule "offers no benefit to election officials as they have no ability to verify the witness signature."

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The plaintiffs, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, sued to allow absentee votes to be counted so long as they are postmarked by Election Day, arguing that first-time mail voters were especially likely to wait until the last minute. The state said waiting for the Postal Service would make it impossible to certify results and get ready for the runoffs. And Childs ruled the poll-closing deadline "is nondiscriminatory."

North Carolina

A group of voters supported by Democratic campaign committees filed a lawsuit in federal court on Monday seeking several changes to make it easier to vote by mail in one of the most politically competitive states in the Deep South.

The suit's bill of particulars is similar to several others the Democrats have brought. It asks a judge to make the state pay the postage on returning absentee ballots; drop the requirement that two witnesses sign the ballot in order for it to be counted; extend the deadline for absentee ballots to arrive at election offices to nine days after Election Day, and give voters a chance to correct signature discrepancies with their ballots. Election officials compare the signature on the absentee ballot with a signature on file.

Michigan

The laws of the state are similar to those in the Carolinas when it comes to returning an absentee ballot: The paper will only get tabulated if it's returned to the proper place before the polls close on election night.

The League of Women Voters, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a suit asking a state appeals court to make Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson extend the deadline. It argues that the law, on the books for eight decades, abridges the "unqualified, unconditional state constitutional right for registered voters to vote in all elections by absentee ballot."

The suit quotes Benson's office as saying 1.75 percent of absentee ballots were rejected this month because they arrived after 8 p.m. on primary day. If all 7.7 million people in the state vote in November — only a theoretical possibility, to be sure — that would mean 134,000 disallowed ballots.

New York

A coalition of disability rights groups sued the Board of Elections in federal court Friday, alleging discrimination against voters who are blind or otherwise physically unable to mark a paper ballot.

The suit says that while marking a paper ballot may be impossible for disabled people, they can easily mark and send an online ballot. Still, election security officials nationwide have warned that any voting system that connects to the internet is vulnerable to being hacked.

The groups are hoping for changes ahead of the state's presidential, congressional, legislative and local primarise in just four weeks, in which voting-by-mail is being made widely available to all voters for the first time because of the pandemic. The suit was filed a month after disability rights groups pressed the Justice Department to insist on more secure remote voting options for those who can't reliably use paper.

From Your Site Articles
  • The 6 toughest states for voting during the pandemic - The Fulcrum ›
  • Democrats sue to ease absentee voting in Pennsylvania and S.C. ›
  • Vote-by-mail limits challenged in three Southern states - The Fulcrum ›
  • South Carolina expands absentee voting for primaries - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • How do I apply for an absentee ballot? | SCVotes ›
  • Absentee voting numbers in S.C. already surpassing any ... ›
  • SC absentee voting surpasses 2016 presidential race levels ... ›
  • What South Carolina's Absentee Voting System Shows the U.S. ... ›
vote by mail

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

Reform in 2023: Leadership worth celebrating

Layla Zaidane

Two technology balancing acts

Dave Anderson

Reform in 2023: It’s time for the civil rights community to embrace independent voters

Jeremy Gruber

Congress’ fix to presidential votes lights the way for broader election reform

Kevin Johnson

Democrats and Republicans want the status quo, but we need to move Forward

Christine Todd Whitman

Reform in 2023: Building a beacon of hope in Boston

Henry Santana
Jerren Chang
latest News

Podcast: Inequitable ability: Electoral and civic challenges faced by those with disabilities

Our Staff
17h

Is reform the way out of extremism?

Mindy Finn
21h

Changing pastimes

Rabbi Charles Savenor
22h

Political blame game: Never let a good crisis go to waste

David L. Nevins
20 March

Tipping points

Jeff Clements
20 March

Your Take: Bank failures, protection and regulation

Our Staff
17 March
Videos

Video: The hidden stories in the U.S. Census

Our Staff

Video: We asked conservatives at CPAC what woke means

Our Staff

Video: DeSantis, 18 states to push back against Biden ESG agenda

Our Staff

Video: A conversation with Tiahna Pantovich

Our Staff

Video: What would happen if Trump was a third-party candidate in 2024?

Our Staff

Video: How the Federal Reserve is the shadow branch of the government

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Inequitable ability: Electoral and civic challenges faced by those with disabilities

Our Staff
17h

Podcast: A tricky dance

Our Staff
14 March

Podcast: Kevin, Tucker and wokism, oh my!

Debilyn Molineaux
David Riordan
13 March

Podcast: Civic learning amid the culture wars

Our Staff
13 March
Recommended
Podcast: Inequitable ability: Electoral and civic challenges faced by those with disabilities

Podcast: Inequitable ability: Electoral and civic challenges faced by those with disabilities

Podcasts
Is reform the way out of extremism?

Is reform the way out of extremism?

Threats to democracy
Changing pastimes

Changing pastimes

Civic Ed
Video: The hidden stories in the U.S. Census

Video: The hidden stories in the U.S. Census

Political blame game: Never let a good crisis go to waste

Political blame game: Never let a good crisis go to waste

Big Picture
Tipping points

Tipping points

Big Picture