How mail-in voting, which begins Friday in North Carolina, could nullify an October surprise

The shift toward voting by mail is a defining feature of the 2020 contest. Not only have partisan lines been drawn over the matter, with Republicans warning of an increased risk of fraud, but the move toward voting ahead of Election Day is more likely to minimize the effect of the debates and even a potential “October surprise.”

“Voters are being urged to vote early via absentee ballots or early voting, and many of them will,” Gilda Daniels, a civil rights attorney and author of Uncounted: The Crisis of Voter Suppression in America, told the Washington Examiner. “In states where early voting starts in September and early October, you will see an increase in ballots cast before Election Day, which will lessen the impact of a surprise.”

With Biden in front of Trump in national polls by an average of 7 percentage points, it is to the mistake-prone standard-bearer’s advantage to encourage voting in advance of Election Day. It also helps him address his public health concerns.

But Daniels noted, “Most folks who are voting early have made up their minds, and a late ‘mistake’ probably wouldn’t sway them to vote for the other candidate.”

“Additionally, in this cycle, there seems to be fewer undecided voters. The issue for this election is who can get out the vote,” she said.

Mac McCorkle, a former North Carolina Democratic strategist and the director of Duke University’s Polis Center, agreed advance voting had altered the 2020 dynamic.

“To the extent that Trump’s strategy depends on discrediting Biden and showing that through the debates, a lot of people are going to be voting now in North Carolina and nationally,” he said. “So, in that sense, this early polling that we’re getting showing Biden with a lead, it may be harder for Trump to change that.”

He added the last 10 days of a campaign, still a crucial period for get-out-the-vote efforts, were now less important than when he was a consultant.

“It does lengthen out the strategy,” he said. “Where Trump really may have trouble is in those states, maybe like Arizona and Florida, that seem to show more of a lead for Biden. Here, it’s quite a toss-up.”

The other 2020 oddity that works in Biden’s favor is party registration rates for absentee ballots.

In the past, more North Carolina Republicans asked for absentee ballots, according to Catawba College political scientist Michael Bitzer, who has been monitoring request data this race and comparing it with previous contests. Although all party registrations are up for a total of almost 619,000 applications so far, Bitzer found that “it’s registered Democrats and unaffiliated voters who are driving the surge.”

“It’s also likely that the mixed messages sent by the President regarding absentee by mail voting and mail-in voting has cause some confusion to the base, and we’ll have to wait and see if the traditional Republican mail-in voter goes in-person this year,” he wrote on his Old North State Politics blog.

But any benefit conferred on Biden through early voting isn’t uniform across the country. While North Carolina will cast the first votes of the cycle, others won’t receive their ballots until 45 days before Election Day, with possible complications caused by mail delays and confusion over deadlines and rules.

North Carolina’s election system was thrust into the national spotlight this week after Trump suggested voters in the state follow up with their mail-in ballot in-person at their local polling place. Trump’s rhetoric seized on fraud fears in a state where a Republican operative was accused of harvesting absentee ballots for 2018 GOP 9th Congressional District candidate Mark Harris. Approximately 2,200 absentee ballots sent it for North Carolina’s Super Tuesday primary on March 3 were rejected, too.

“If it’s as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote. If it isn’t tabulated, they’ll be able to vote. So that’s the way it is. And that’s what they should do,” the president told reporters Wednesday.

Trump stood by his idea in a tweet Thursday even though North Carolina voters can check a ballot’s status online.

Karen Brinson Bell, head of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, was quick to counter Trump’s claims. She reminded voters of her board’s audit process and other measures designed to crack down on intentional or unintentional fraud.

“Attempting to vote twice in an election or soliciting someone to do so also is a violation of North Carolina law,” Bell wrote in a statement. “The State Board has a dedicated investigations team that investigates allegations of double-voting, which are referred to prosecutors when warranted.”