T. Greg DoucetteVerified account

Bear with me y'all, I'm going somewhere with this. Here's the @NBCNews storyhttps://twitter.com/nbcnews/status/787778806044061697 …

Now, why does that comment matter? I'm glad you asked.

Chapter 163 of the North Carolina General Statutes governs election laws. Article 20 governs absentee ballots. http://www.ncleg.net/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/ByArticle/Chapter_163/Article_20.html …

"It shall be unlawful [a Class I felony!]: (6) For any person to take into that person's possession...

...for delivery to a voter or for return to a county board of elections the absentee ballot of any voter[.]"

That comment by the @NCGOP spokesperson (if it is being reported accurately) would be an admission of felonious activity. Yikes.

Correct. Merely possessing someone else's absentee ballot – when that person isn't a relative – is a Class I felony. https://twitter.com/montel_williams/status/788086878780035072 …

Sorry for tweeting and disappearing y'all, had to be in court over in Orange County (same county as torched HQ). More soon.

Alright I'm back. Didn't realize this thread had blown up as much as it had lol

Re the ballot issue, there are 3 possibilities: The media misreported what was said The spokesperson misspoke It's all accurate

Being misreported is always a possibility. People are human, and sometimes legal topics get muffed. I know from experience w/ my firm.

Being misreported is also the prong that the NCGOP is saying happened https://twitter.com/kamimueller/status/788089559049506816 …

Option , misspeaking, is equally possible for the same reason: people make mistakes

And on this prong, there are two sub-options: she meant to say "sample" ballots, or she meant to say absentee ballot "requests"

Sample ballots are done up by parties all the time, to orient voters on what they'll see when they get in the booth and pre-mark candidates

If you're an NC voter, you can even get your own sample ballot on the NCSBE website

So if that's what got burned, no big deal

Slightly bigger deal if it's absentee ballot requests, but still not illegal

The way absentee voting works, folks first have to request an absentee ballot from the county

It's not unusual for the party to encourage voters to request them. The party can provide the blank request form & gather it when done

Then forward the request to the county. It's designed to make the process as easy as possible for voters, b/c those are "bankable" votes

Meaning if a voter turns in an absentee ballot, the party doesn't need to spend additional effort contacting them to vote in-person

Now mind you, handling absentee *requests* is very different from handling absentee *ballots*. One is legal and common, one is not.

Which brings you to Door . If it was all said and reported accurately, the jig as they say is very much up.

I have a hard time believing is what happened though. No one can be that stupid and be in politics.

I'm unconvinced it's , since I saw the same thing on NBC and on Fox News.

In terms of sheer probability and knowing human frailty, my guess is it's . Meant to say "absentee ballot requests" & left off "requests"

We'll find out soon enough if ppl who submitted requests to the party don't get their ballots in the mail