For much of the first half of 2025, Jefferson Griffin’s challenge to several of the state’s election laws took most of the air out of the election space. While a federal court rightfully rejected Griffin’s argument for changes ex post facto to North Carolina’s election laws and regulations, it allowed state Supreme Court rulings to apply to future North Carolina elections.
The questions presented in the Griffin case on never residents and on voter ID rules applying to military and overseas ballots are directly spelled out in the state Supreme Court’s ruling. The enforcement of voters’ HAVA (Help America Vote Act) information requirements is likely to be enforced based on the Griffin case and a newly issued lawsuit from the federal government. While these three policy changes seem all but assured after the case, the Griffin case has greater impacts on policy aside from just the three policies he challenged.
That is because the core of the overseas voter ID debate asked a much broader question than just voter ID. It asked whether the articles of North Carolina law governing regular absentee mail ballots and governing military and overseas voting are connected or should be read separately.
In speaking with Gerry Cohen, the former director of legislative drafting for the North Carolina General Assembly, he indicated that the 2013 recodification of North Carolina’s overseas voting rules was designed to be separate from standard absentee voting rules. Cohen suggested that the recodification of overseas voting rules from Article 21 to Article 21A was to comply with the federal UOCAVA (Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act) rules that had just been implemented.
While Cohen and I may differ on how to interpret the current General Statutes’ interaction between the standard absentee ballot and overseas voting rules, the state Supreme Court has interpreted these two chapters to be directly connected due to G.S. § 163-239 in Article 20 regarding absentee voting by military and overseas voting:
§ 163-239. Article 21A relating to absentee voting by military and overseas voters is not applicable.
Except as otherwise provided therein, Article 21A of this Chapter shall not apply to or modify the provisions of this Article.
This interpretation’s further impacts were debated in Griffin’s and opponent Allison Riggs’ appeals court briefings. The most notable effect regards the witness signature requirements for overseas voters. While standard mail-in ballots require two witnesses (or a singular notary) to sign the ballot, no such rule exists for overseas voters, most of whom utilize the overseas ballot portal for voting.
Article 20 references witness requirements in three different parts (GS. § 163-120.1, GS. § 163-229, and GS. § 163-231). While the statutes make references to their placement on the container return envelopes, broader readings of G.S. § 163-231(a)(5) and (6) could leave room for the witness requirements to apply to overseas voters. Article 21A’s silence on witness requirements could imply that the requirement laid out in Article 20 should apply to these overseas voters.
Given the similarity to the issue of voter ID in the Griffin case, a potential challenge could be brought based on the state’s rulings in that case.
How the case impacts North Carolina’s witness requirement rules
While nothing in the law prevents registered overseas voters from voting under the mail-in ballot rules outlined in Article 20, the state must also leave them the option to vote using UOCAVA rules in Article 21A. One of the main reasons the legislature should address this matter is due to federal UOCAVA rules.
Should Article 20 apply to overseas voters, the option for a singular notary signature would conflict with federal law, which prevents notary requirements for voting for UOCAVA voters but does not bar state witness requirements. Only three states (Alabama, Alaska, and Wisconsin) require signatures for federal write-in ballots.
No state appears to have a witness requirement when utilizing the electronic voting methods. If the legislature did apply such a method, the implementation of such requirements would be difficult. Digital signatures would likely have been allowed, which could create difficulties when uploading a signature and cybersecurity for allowing outside information to be inserted into the portal.
The state legislature should look to clarify the state’s witness requirements for overseas voters and other interactions stemming from the established connection between Article 20 and Article 21A. This would allow them to address such potential issues with an ounce of prevention rather than another potential lawsuit like we saw with the Griffin case.
