RALEIGH, N.C. — Republican officials have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to move up North Carolina’s recently extended deadline for accepting late-arriving absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day.
State Republican legislative leaders filed an appeal on Thursday.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections had announced in late September that absentee ballots could be accepted by counties until Nov. 12, as long as they were mailed by Nov. 3, which is Election Day. That rule change lengthened the period for accepting ballots from three to nine days after the election.
The state board made the change as part of a legal settlement with a union-affiliated group that had challenged what it saw as restrictive voting rules during the coronavirus pandemic. The settlement said the longer deadline was needed in case of postal delays.
But Republicans sued over the deadline change, arguing that it usurped legislators’ authority to set the deadline. They also argued that it created arbitrary and unequal treatment for voters who complied with an earlier, stricter set of rules.
Federal district and appeals courts declined to intervene.
