A federal judge ruled Wednesday that North Carolina’s rigid new mail-in ballot policies will remain in place for the midterms, upholding a last-minute rule change that could make it easier for state officials to invalidate thousands of votes in November.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder, a George W. Bush appointee, said that it was already too late to overturn the policies, which the state’s Republican-led board of elections passed hours before voters received their ballots in early September.
“Neither of the two Challenged Provisions, which are clearly stated on the absentee ballot materials — that the voter sign his or her own name and place their ballot in a sealed envelope provided by the county board of election — is burdensome, much less unduly so,” Schroeder wrote.
The judge said in his ruling that the plaintiffs — a coalition of civil rights groups — waited too long to move for an injunction, filing the request the day before officials began counting absentee ballots.
Trending
“We’re in the midst of election season,” Schroeder said at a hearing last week.
The decision upholds some of the strictest vote-by-mail procedures in the country on North Carolina voters, who were the first in the country this cycle to receive their ballots. Schroeder’s ruling also comes as national efforts to curb or question mail-in voting intensify before Nov. 3.
The new guidelines make it easier for the state to reject completed ballots over technicalities. The rules direct county officials to “spoil” mail-in ballots when the inner envelope is not sealed perfectly or when a voter’s signature does clearly match the name of an application number on the return envelope — even if the voter uses a nickname, maiden name or initials.
While election officials typically issue replacement ballots, the plaintiffs argued that voters whose errors are discovered close to Election Day rarely have enough time to submit a new one.
At a recent hearing, the plaintiff’s attorney Jacob Shelly said that most voters simply do not recast ballots after county officials declare them spoiled.
More than 123,000 voters had already submitted requests for absentee ballots as of Oct. 8, and 31,582 had been requested by the Oct. 14 hearing, according to court records. Absentee voting is largely utilized by overseas military service members and elderly and disabled voters. Shelly argued the new instructions lack clear standards and could produce inconsistent treatment across county lines.
“The Board’s new Republican majority rushed to implement eleventh-hour absentee ballot restrictions that will inevitably disenfranchise scores of North Carolina voters,” the plaintiffs argued. “They will invalidate thousands of qualified voters’ ballots in the November election unless enjoined,” the motion added.
Those rules will remain law at least through the midterms, per Schroeder’s Monday ruling.
In the order, the judge makes light of Shelly’s arguments to provide an alternative to the voting rules.
“Plaintiffs’ proposed remedy eliminates any verification of the signature, permitting a voter to sign anyone’s name to the certification, even ‘Mickey Mouse,’” he wrote.
North Carolina’s election board shifted to a 3–2 Republican majority in May 2025 after the state’s Republican auditor, Dave Boliek, gained appointment authority. The board approved the changes despite a state law putting them on hold a week prior, which Democratic Gov. Josh Stein called a “blatant circumvention of the law.”
The board’s messaging around the changes reflected talking points repeated by President Donald Trump, who has claimed without evidence that mail-in voting is unreliable and rife with voter fraud. The Supreme Court recently blocked the U.S. Postal Service from implementing new rules pushed by the president to restrict mail-in ballots ahead of the midterms.
North Carolina has rolled out increasingly rigid voting rules in recent years. The state passed voter ID laws in 2023, and requiring voters to fill out their ballots in the presence of two witnesses and attach a photo copy of their ID if they intend to vote by mail.
In-person early voting in the state kicked off last Thursday.
Author
