The following is a statement from the State Board of Elections regarding recent social media posts suggesting that if an election worker writes on your ballot, it will invalidate your ballot.
In North Carolina, this is false.
For all absentee ballots, including one-stop ballots, election workers write an identifying number on your ballot. This is a special number assigned to each ballot and voter as required by law.
This number allows the ballot to be retrieved if necessary based on a voter challenge, such as if the voter dies before Election Day or double votes. It can also be used to retrieve ballots in the event of a successful election protest, such as if several voters are given the wrong ballot style and the margin for a contest is less than that number of voters.
Election Day ballots are not retrievable and will not have writing on them unless they are provisional ballots, in which case they may be marked with a “P”.
In certain counties, the voter’s precinct also must be written on the ballot so that absentee ballots, including one-stop early voting ballots, can be sorted back into the proper precincts after the election for reporting and data purposes, also as required by law. Early voters may cast their ballot at any early voting site in their county.
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