First, a clarification: A sentence in our story on voting rights last week erroneously implied that voters can only request a mail-in ballot a week before Election Day. In fact, voters can request a mail-in ballot several weeks before an election, but the cutoff for requesting a mail-in ballot is one week before Election Day. New laws could mandate that voters would need to request a ballot two weeks before Election Day, leaving them less time. That said, some of our readers disagreed with our story’s premise that Republican lawmakers are trying to make it more difficult for some voters to cast their ballots.
“In North Carolina no id is required to vote,” wrote reader Terry Duff in an email. “17 days of one-stop early voting. Any registered NC voter may request an absentee ballot for any reason. Special accommodations for anyone who wants them; people in care facilities, blind, visibly impaired, curbside voting, receiving help from a non-family assistant for just about any reason; including a voter who is unable to mark a ballot without help and Illiteracy.
“And if all that fails you can go to a voting place on voting day and you can ALWAYS file a provisional vote.
“Voting doesn’t need to be easier or more accessible but it certainly needs to be much more secure because I want my vote to count. There are so many opportunities to have fraud in our current system. Yes, I know you will say that no one has been caught in a major fraud, yet but I have not ever heard of a single person whose legitimate vote was not counted.”
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