Voting During COVID-19

Welcome to family policy matters in engaging and informative weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina family policy Council hi this is John Ralston, presidency, family, and were grateful to have you with us for this week's program is our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged and inspired by what you hear on family policy matters and that you will fold better equipped to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state and nation, and now here's our house to family policy matters Tracy to Yvette Griggs thanks for joining us this week for family policy matters. As we approach the 2020 elections. Once again, North Carolina finds itself an important battleground for the presidency and the U.S. Senate, but having such a vital election during a pandemic mean some things may look quite a bit different this year to ensure were fully informed on what to expect.

We've invited Dr. Andy Jackson to give us the lowdown on this ever-changing landscape. Dr. Jackson is the elections policy analyst at the Silva Thomas Institute. He has a PhD in political science and is taught probably sign here in North Carolina and internationally. Dr. Andy Jackson welcome to family policy matters North Carolinians have a number of different methods to vote are those we have read what you boat North Carolina go over them in order that you can do them right now. North Carolinians are voting by mail an online portal at the North Carolina State Board of elections homepage where you could request the ballot. Both have to be postmarked by November 3. We also have early voting with you starting this week to go from October 9 until Saturday, October 31.

On those days you can actually register to vote and vote on the same date but if you're not registered in North Carolina yet. And then of course there's election day and I watched big old to be open from 6:30 AM until 7:30 PM and that is on Tuesday, November 3 regarding the requesting of absentee ballots that you can request up until very late in the game but most people are suggesting you get that done early, right. The deadline for the York County Board of elections received an option ballot request October 27, but realistically you really if you plan to vote by mail.

I highly recommend that you do it, certainly by the first Of October. You never know with mail.

It might take longer than expected, and currently under North Carolina law, they have to receive it even if you mail it and get a postmarked on election day has to be received by three days after under current law, so I highly recommend that you vote by mail you a sin to them at least a week before election right people still have concerns they can take those absentee ballots to certain points right right now you can drop it off at your County Board of elections office. You are legally supposed to find that into The bike drop it on the counter put in a little box outside your supposed sign in your name so they can verify that the voters are the persons of the member ballot only the owner or a close relative and pick a ballot during early voting.

You can also drop it off at a early voting location of the double bows and most County what you cannot do drop off a absentee ballot at your polling place.

The only place you have to actually vote at the polling place but yes, there are several ways you can print out lots of good information.

Thank you.

So let's talk about 20/20, because what a crazy year. And of course got it pandemic going on, and in light of that, the North Carolina legislature and the board of elections have made some changes to the elections process. Tell us about that was one of the bugs that have been made one third of these organizations are supposed to be set up in every county: multipart game they are designed to help people in living facility be able to register to vote and to the men marking the ballot if needed. There has been expanded so that the analysis anybody who hires help. So if you need some of the spent ballot or getting your ballot and you can call your County Board of elections and the help you also to witness requirement in North Carolina for absent ballot is been reduced to witnesses down to one for this year only and also the gone and the federal government have given combined $28 million to the state board of elections and county boards of election in order to implement procedures so that people can vote safely when you go into both of your notice. Things are going. Look very different. Everybody would be wearing a mask forgot to ask you to wear a math can't tell you can't vote.

Be polite if they ask you to put on put on there's going to be hand sanitizer everywhere.

They're going to regularly cleaning the voting location for all of that extra work requires money and so the county and state board of elections of God but also the higher pay for election workers to try to encourage more people to come out and work so all of those changes for the poles on election day. Early on we heard there might be some problems with finding enough polling workers are used envisioning that we can have enough people to work those poles, we probably are deportable at the county have been working hard. There might be some precincts.

It's a little early to tell. We should know very soon how many if any that might have to be closed and those voters vote at another precinct. If there's not enough workers to work that location right now at the moment, it seems like we're good to go for most mistakes and you also mention the multi-partisan assistance teams and you said they were supposed to be set up in every county does that mean that there's some issues with that. I heard and I haven't just verify this, but I have heard that about a dozen counties more rural county that you have small populations but don't have a fully set up multipartisan assistance team leader one of the things that I would encourage folks if you have some time and you contact your County Board of elections and volunteer to serve on those teams is a great community service, help your fellow citizen vote to leave mention already.

If you have perceived threats, possibly to the integrity of North Carolina elections. What do you consider to be the greatest threats will right now. I still say the ongoing threat of people attempting to harvest absentee ballots ballot heart is been used when you have organized political groups going around and collecting people's absentee ballot, spent the week just to deliver the boredom. Of course folks are vulnerable to the point of having their ballot envelope seemed open and potentially altered, potentially destroyed and so that buildings are now the North Carolina Gen. so we passed a law last year and this was a big bipartisan bill to help perform absent the ballot process to make it more difficult to harvest ballot the good things like make it so that political groups couldn't do the ballot request on behalf of citizens and and similar items, but considering the large numbers of absentee ballot request were looking at this year's produce is kind of a larger field from which to try to harvest ballot so that will biggest danger that we have their other potential problems but is hardly affecting dozen hundred, maybe thousands of dollars they would be the ballot harvesting. Let's talk about voter ID voters in North Carolina approved a constitutional amendment requiring voter ID in 2018, but that amendment was struck down by the courts. Earlier this year. However, a new ruling was issued regarding that amendment. So tell us what the current status of voter ID is in North Carolina will spill off even though voter ID in that particular case back directly to other injunctions, one at the state level and one at the federal level against voter ID were not going to voter ID this year.

So when you go and vote in November, or at one of your early voting locations do not have to join 98. So since the 2016 election and the 2018 midterms.

What trends have we seen here in North Carolina as far as voter registration is concerned and would you venture to draw any conclusions about how those trends might affect the 2020 elections since 2016. There's been a net gain of 2016 election there's been a net gain of 85,000 Republican little over a little under 337,000 unaffiliated voters. However, there's been a net decline of hundred and 59,000 Democrats that we have hundred almost 150,000 fewer Democrats on the voter rolls than we did on November 8, 2016 melt a lot of those folks are people that had been taken off during recall list maintenance sometimes called purging and so by definition, those are folks that had voted several years. The impact of the Democratic decline might not be as large a game, however, that relative gain in Republican mean that some of the closer election statewide or in some of the county or district in the state. The Republicans have a slight advantage now compared to what they had four years ago, polling soap, we can see more of the spillover of this just kind of unpredictable year.

Do you think him regarding our elections in pulling this year possibly. Holiness of the snapshot so when you see a poll right now.

That told you about things right now there are, of course, problem physical issues with the margin of error so things could be ± 3% either way both candidates so you contact have to think about those numbers of the range. For example, if you have holes come out the same day in a candidate is 50%. 1:41% of the other folks doesn't really mean that we are one is right and wrong, it just means the universe variation but you have to deal with. Now they tend to get a little more accurate when you get closer to election day, but you don't want to put too much stock in poll themselves. There are signs of a lot of polls have one candidate consistently had with the candidate is probably ahead, but know the exact amount of that margin between the candidates. You might very right in one final opportunity for you to give us some pointers on protecting our votes and our ballots. Anything else you want to add one thing is if you can vote in person to have a chance to observe the procedures for election day I went out and covered out in western North Carolina. The second primary for the 11th district congressional race that they had on June 23. I had a chance to see how they're going to conduct with masks with the cleaning. You can vote safely in person. Dr. Felty said that as well.

You can safely go to person. So I would think if you can vote in person because you have control of your ballot through from the point where you market to the point where you put it into the ballot box yourself. Same thing with early voting five.

If you have to if you don't have a choice but to vote absentee. Make sure that you control the ballot throughout the process. As you mentioned before, if at all possible, drop it off at your board of elections yourself if you can't move try to get a near relative to do that 40 and only as a last resort affecting in the mail and never never hand your ballot off to somebody from a political organization. The knocks on the door very got forward just about out of time for this week. But before we go. Dr. Jackson work in our listeners go to learn more about how to vote here North Carolina and to follow your work. I highly recommend the board what webpage they have links where if you need to you can request that the ballot they also have lots of information about you look up the polling place to have this thing called voter lookup tool for you this morning to print off my sample ballot so that I can go ahead and figure out who to vote on some of the down ballot races but I haven't had a chance to look at yet, so that's a really good tool for my work. I am my colleagues are@ourwebpagewithhe.org and we also want to remind our listeners that the North Carolina family policy Council's nonpartisan 2020 voter guide is available on our website@ncfamily.oig you can download a copy of the entire voter guide. There get a personalized voter guide based on your address and also place orders for hard copies of the voter guides to distribute to your family, friends, neighbors, church, and other community organizations. Dr. Andy Jackson listed a test thank you so much for being with us on family policy matters listening to family policy matters.

We hope you enjoyed the program and plaintiff to do it again next week to listen to the show Oman into learn more about NC families want to encourage and inspire families across her Lotta good or website it NC family.award that's NC family.org. Thanks again for listening and may God bless you and your family