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Absentee Ballots From Black Voters Rejected At Higher Rate Than White Voters

WFDD screen capture courtesy: ncsbe.gov

As requested absentee ballots are now being delivered, the North Carolina State Board of Elections has data on how many have been returned and what acceptance rates are. What the data show is that Black voters' ballots are being rejected at a higher rate than white voters.

So far, over 124,000 absentee ballots have been returned. But not all of them are being accepted. Ballots can be rejected for several reasons. They might lack witness information, or have a signature that doesn't match.  

Reporting from the website FiveThirtyEight shows that 4.7 percent of Black voters' ballots have been rejected; that's about four times higher than the rejection rates for white voters.

County election boards will notify voters when there are issues with their ballot and allow for corrections to be made.     

Over 930,000 North Carolina voters have requested an absentee ballot - the majority of them are Democrats. At this point in the 2016 election, that number was only 70,000.

Bethany is WFDD's editorial director. She joined the staff in the fall of 2012. She received her B.A. and M.A. in English Literature from Wake Forest University. Between undergraduate studies and graduate school, Bethany served as the intern to Talk of the Nation at NPR in D.C., participating in live NPR Election Night Coverage, Presidential debate broadcasts, regular Talk of the Nation shows, and helping to plan the inaugural broadcast of ‘Talk of the World.' She enjoys engaging with her interests in books, politics, and art in the interdisciplinary world of public radio. Before becoming editorial director, Bethany was assistant news Director, a reporter and associate producer for WFDD's Triad Arts and Triad Arts Weekend. Originally from Jacksonville, Florida, Bethany enjoys calling the Piedmont home.

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