RALEIGH, N.C. _ A federal judge ordered more changes Wednesday to absentee voting rules after hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots have been cast and as early, in-person voting gets underway Thursday.
U.S. District Court Judge William Osteen ruled that the state board of elections needs to make modifications to a settlement agreement that allows for fixing, or "curing," problems with ballots.
For ballots missing a signature from a witness verifying the voter had filled it out, the settlement would have allowed voters to sign a statement verifying it was their ballot. That would have allowed those ballots to be accepted without a witness signature.
But Osteen said ballots must have witness signatures.
"It is further ordered that the North Carolina State Board of Elections is hereby enjoined and prohibited from implementing a due process or 'cure procedure' ... which authorizes acceptance of a ballot without a witness or assistant signature," Osteen wrote.
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