(I apologize if this has been posted already. I did a rough search and didn't find anything.)
This past Wednesday, the "Raleigh News and Observer" posted a story called Court Rejects Out-of-Precinct Ballots.
In a nutshell, the NC Supreme Court (with all Republican justices in this case) ruled that 11,310 ballots cast provisionally in the November elections will be voided.
There's more after the break...
While this ruling potentially affects the outcome of the State Superintendent for Public Education, its effects will be more than immediate. In essence, the court says provsional ballots don't count unless they are cast in the precinct in which the voter is registered.
Oh, my.
I tried to locate the Court case, but it's not yet available, so I went to the NC General Statutes and read what they have to say about "provisional" ballots. I cannot for the life of me find anything that would even remotely allow the courts to exclude valid provisional ballots from counting in an election. The statute governing provisional ballots, §163-166.11, says:
Provisional voting requirements.
If an individual seeking to vote claims to be a registered voter in a jurisdiction and though eligible to vote in the election does not appear on the official list of eligible registered voters in the voting place, that individual may cast a provisional official ballot as follows:
(1) An election official at the voting place shall notify the individual that the individual may cast a provisional official ballot in that election.
(2) The individual may cast a provisional official ballot at that voting place upon executing a written affirmation before an election official at the voting place, stating that the individual is a registered voter in the jurisdiction in which the individual seeks to vote and is eligible to vote in that election.
(3) At the time the individual casts the provisional official ballot, the election officials shall provide the individual written information stating that anyone casting a provisional official ballot can ascertain whether and to what extent the ballot was counted and, if the ballot was not counted in whole or in part, the reason it was not counted.
(4) The cast provisional official ballot and the written affirmation shall be secured by election officials at the voting place according to guidelines and procedures adopted by the State Board of Elections. At the close of the polls, election officials shall transmit the provisional official ballots cast at that voting place to the county board of elections for prompt verification according to guidelines and procedures adopted by the State Board of Elections.
AND THIS, the most important part: (5) The county board of elections shall count the individual's provisional official ballot for all ballot items on which it determines that the individual was eligible under State or federal law to vote.
This is republican "legislating from the bench" for you.