• North Carolina’s absentee ballot law protects voters from manipulation and ballot trafficking
  • A 2022 court ruling allows anyone to take possession of a disabled person’s absentee ballot
  • The General Assembly should make permanent a post–Hurricane Helene law allowing multipartisan assistance teams to take possession of absentee ballots

North Carolina has seen a flurry of election reforms over the past several years, including several changes to election law and administration in a bill for which the General Assembly will soon have a veto override vote. The legislature has so far neglected to protect disabled voters from ballot traffickers after those protections were stripped away in a 2022 lawsuit, however. A Hurricane Helene relief bill provided one form of protection for disabled voters in affected counties. The General Assembly should apply that protection to the whole state.

North Carolina Law Protects Us from Ballot Traffickers

As reported in the North State Journal, Hal Nunn’s mother, Barbara, had advanced Alzheimer’s disease and was under the care of Autumn Care Nursing Home in Raeford, North Carolina. “I can tell you she doesn’t know the day of the week, year or the names of the people running for office,” Nunn said. Despite that, he discovered that someone had requested an absentee ballot on her behalf.

Nunn’s discovery eventually led to the 2020 plea bargains of two Democratic activists, Wanda Blue and Julia Shaw, in Hoke County on charges related to 21 cases of ballot trafficking.

Ballot trafficking (also called ballot harvesting or ballot collecting) involves individuals or organizations taking possession of a voter’s absentee ballot and delivering it to election officials. There are several dangers with this practice that put free and fair elections at risk. Ballot traffickers can:

  • Discard — or choose not to collect — ballots from those they believe will vote for the “wrong” candidate
  • Alter ballots in their possession
  • Gain access to voters while marking their ballots, violating the secrecy of the vote
  • Unduly influence or pressure voters while they are completing their ballots

The most famous case of ballot trafficking in North Carolina involved McCrae Dowless and his crew in Bladen County taking possession of hundreds of absentee ballots in 2018 on behalf of Republican Mark Harris’ campaign in the 9th Congressional District. However, there have been other such cases in Bladen County and other places in North Carolina. 

Court Ruling Strips Disabled Voters of Ballot Trafficking Protections

Ballot trafficking has long been illegal in North Carolina, where it is a felony for any person other than the voter or a near relative or legal guardian to take possession of the voter’s ballot (§ 163‑226.3.(5)). The General Assembly strengthened that protection in a 2019 bipartisan bill following the 9th District controversy.

In a 2022 court ruling, those protections were swept away for one class of voters: disabled people. Federal Judge Terrence W. Boyle issued a summary judgment in Disability Rights North Carolina v. North Carolina State Board of Elections, striking down the prohibition of ballot trafficking by allowing anyone to take possession of the ballots of disabled people.

The ruling also struck down the state’s prohibition of assisted living facility owners, managers, or employees from marking ballots on behalf of their patients or “helping” those patients mark them. Elected officials, political party officeholders, and candidates now may also provide such assistance despite state law against it.

As Boyle noted in his ruling, the language of Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act is clear:

Any voter who requires assistance to vote by reason of blindness, disability, or inability to read or write may be given assistance by a person of the voter’s choice, other than the voter’s employer or agent of that employer or officer or agent of the voter’s union.

While Section 208’s goal of making sure disabled people can vote is laudable, it also means that our state’s most vulnerable residents are now even more susceptible to fraud, intimidation, or manipulation by ballot traffickers.

Hurricane Helene Bill Section Provided Protection for Disabled Voters

After Doyle’s ruling, I wrote that officials should expand the duties of multipartisan assistance teams (MATs). MATs are bipartisan “group[s] appointed by a county board of elections to assist with mail-in absentee voting and other services to voters.” MATs should be given an additional duty:

The State Board of Elections should issue guidance to county boards on how MATs can transmit absentee ballots, including maintaining joint custody of ballots until they are mailed or hand-delivered to the county board of elections office.

In October, the General Assembly and the State Board of Elections (SBE) made that change. As part of the Disaster Recovery Act of 2024, the General Assembly tasked the SBE to:

Establish a uniform process for multipartisan teams to assist voters in voting absentee ballots and documenting the receipt and transmittal of the voted absentee ballots to the appropriate county board of elections. 

Unfortunately, the law only applied to the 2024 general election, and only to the counties affected by Hurricane Helene.

The General Assembly should assess how MATs performed in the Helene-affected counties and use that information to draft a law authorizing MATs to assist voters in assisted living facilities in marking their ballots if requested. They should also be authorized to receive and transmit absentee ballots to their local county board of elections. Such a bill would have the same broad, bipartisan support that the 2019 anti–ballot trafficking bill had.

County elections boards and political party leaders, perhaps with a one-time infusion of funds from the state, should work together to ensure there are enough MAT volunteers to meet the needs of all voters in assisted living facilities in their respective counties.

This proposal alone would not prevent what happened to Barbara Nunn from happening again. The long-term solution is for Congress to adjust Section 208 to prevent assisted living facility owners, managers, or employees from assisting disabled voters or taking their ballots. However, MAT reform will provide some protection for disabled voters by giving them a safer way to request and submit their ballots.

If you would like to serve as a MAT member, contact your county political party leaders or your county board of elections to see how you can volunteer.