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North Carolina will beat the federal deadline for having absentee ballots ready for military service members and citizens living overseas.
The state Board of Elections announced Friday that all 100 counties will send military and citizen overseas ballots to people who requested them on Friday, Sept. 20, beating the federal deadline by one day.
The first wave of absentee ballot mailings for all other voters will begin Sept. 24.
Counties were ready to begin mailing absentee ballots on Sept. 6, but a lawsuit and appeal by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. scuttled that plan.
The only way to meet the federal deadline was to have different start dates for absentee ballot distribution, according to an email from the elections board.
On Monday, the state Supreme Court in a 4-3 ruling ordered Kennedy’s name removed from the ballot. About 2.9 million ballots with his name on them had been printed by that time. Kennedy, a nominee of the new We the People party, wanted his name removed so he wouldn’t draw votes from former President Donald Trump.
Through Thursday, more than 166,000 voters, including more than 13,600 military and overseas voters, had requested ballots, according to the Board of Elections.
Counties pay for ballot printing, so the cost to each county to prepare new ballots varies widely.
New ballots cost some counties a few thousand dollars. Durham’s cost is $55,100, according to the state Board. In Wake, the county with the most registered voters in the state, printing new ballots cost $300,000, the email said.
The deadline for requesting absentee ballots is 5 pm, Oct. 29.
The ballot mailing schedule has changed but the deadline for returning them has not.
Mail-in ballots must be returned to county elections offices by 7:30 pm on Election Day.
Absentee ballot request and return deadlines are different for members of the military and citizens living outside the United States.