CATAWBA COUNTY, N.C. — Local election officials said an organization mailed tens of thousands of voter absentee request forms across the state.
The forms broke the law by filling out portions of information, officials said.
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Reporter Dave Faherty went to the Catawba County Board of Elections where he discovered 800 voters received the forms.
The Board of Elections said about a dozen people returned the forms hoping to be able to vote by mail. But election officials said before the voters even got them in the mail, someone else had filled out some of the voters’ information.
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About 1,000 Catawba County residents have filled out requests to vote by absentee ballot in the presidential election.
“It was a third-party vendor sent to voters here in Catawba County,” said Amanda Duncan, with the Catawba Board of Elections. “A pre-filled absentee request form, with the law statue, an absentee request form cannot be prefilled.”
As of January, a pre-filled absentee request form is no longer permitted for any reason in North Carolina. The North Carolina Board of Elections sent an email last month to county directors.
“We wanted to alert you that the Center for Voter Information has sent our mailing to around 80,000 North Carolina voters that includes an absentee request form with some information prefilled,” the NCBE email read.
The Center for Voter Information said it believed it was complying with the new North Carolina law. “As a convenience, CVI had filled out names and addresses of the 80,000 North Carolina residents, as is common and legal in most states,” CVI officials stated. “However, the new state law in North Carolina is poorly worded.”
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The organization said that with millions of people self-isolating because of COVID-19, voting-by-mail efforts have never been more important.
Sherri Braden, who has voted for nearly 40 years in the county, isn’t taking any chances this fall.
“Mask, gloves and all,” she said. “I’m going to the polls.”
The Board of Elections said if you got one of the pre-filled forms, throw it away and go to its website and get the form. CVI said they’ve already sent out blank forms.
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