In Western North Carolina, the local roads are open some days. On other days they are closed while road crews remove wobbling branches and downed power lines, the results of a storm system and subsequent hurricane, Helene, that have devastated the region. I’ve traveled here to help my mother as she recovers from a car wreck that’s left her wheelchair-bound for the next few months. In the aftermath of September’s storms, Asheville received an influx of emergency personnel from all corners of the country, bearing giant trucks and impetuous approaches to disaster relief. My mother’s car was hit by a fire truck after being pushed into traffic by a different fire truck; caught between warring emergency vehicles, each on their way to some other disaster. She’ll be okay in the end, but the end is a ways off.
The timing for an accident is never good. For a woman like my mother, who takes her civic responsibility of voting very seriously, the timing – just ahead of a presidential election – couldn’t have been worse. We spoke on the phone just two days after the car accident, and her top priority was to request an absentee ballot. Although I was hundreds of miles away in New York I was able to complete this task1.
it became clear that North Carolina’s voting laws – including new rules implemented by a supermajority Republican legislature in 2023 – would be a hurdle that she would need to overcome, possibly an insurmountable hurdle.
Immediately following her collision, she was taken to Asheville’s Mission Hospital. Because of the storm, the facility had no running water. Large portions were closed; whole wings emptied. Most patients were sent to other parts of the state. She lay neglected for days. Finally, after a painful week, unbathed and underfed, she was transported two hours east to a rehabilitation center in Charlotte. There she received the support she needed and deserved.
A few days later, her absentee ballot also arrived in Charlotte. It was a relief to know that although she was bruised and broken, her vote would be counted all the same. Or so she thought. As she scanned the paperwork provided in the mail, it became clear that North Carolina’s voting laws – including new rules implemented by a supermajority Republican legislature in 2023 – would be a hurdle that she would need to overcome, possibly an insurmountable hurdle.
To start, she needed two witnesses who would observe her vote. Being miles away from home, this was not a possibility. Hospital staff could not serve this function. There was another option, though. In lieu of two witnesses, the rules allowed for the ballot to be notarized. My mother asked her doctor about this possibility. He suggested she confer with the hospital’s chaplain who was a notary public. This seemed like a simple solution and an appointment for his time was made. Then she read the rules as printed on her ballot2:
For voters living in a facility (clinic, nursing home, or adult care home) who do NOT require assistance due to a disability, certain limitations apply: The voter must first seek to have a near relative, legal guardian or Multipartisan Assistance Team (MAT) to assist with requesting a ballot. If none of these options is available within 7 days of making a request for a MAT, the voter may get assistance from anyone who is not: An owner, manager, director, or employee of the facility; An elected official, a candidate, or an officeholder in a political party; A campaign manager or treasurer for a candidate or political party.
So, the chaplain was out. He was an employee of the facility she was living in and therefore disqualified. Fortunately, though, the wise and noble legislators in North Carolina had the foresight to create what they called The Multipartisan Assistance Team – MAT for short. According to the NC State Board of Elections website, MAT is “a group appointed by a county board of elections to assist voters in facilities with mail-in absentee voting.” To schedule a MAT visit, one must contact their county board of elections. This was the solution offered to my mother.
On the face of it this seems like a viable solution. That is, unless your permanent residence is in a county located two hours west of your rehabilitation center. In theory, the Polk County board of elections would send someone to Charlotte so that my mother could get the assistance she needed to cast her vote, but timing was such that my mother was reviewing these rules on Tuesday, October 29th – one week before election day. Not enough time to schedule an appointment.
Livid at the State of North Carolina for its barrier-building tactics that threatened her ability to vote, she declared defeat and gave up on the mail-in ballot,
Confined flat on her back, in a city miles away from family, surrounded by employees of the “facility,” she frustratingly relayed her dilemma over the phone to me. Because of another new regulation, even if she could cajole two passing strangers to witness her ballot (which only seemed sort-of within the confusingly written rules), it might be too late, anyway. Whereas a long-standing North Carolina voting rule had once provided a 3-day grace period for ballots postmarked by election day to be counted, the new rule now required all ballots to be in county election offices by 7:30pm on election day. Plus, on top of all that, she also needed to provide a photocopy of her ID; no easy task when you can’t even roll over without help. This was all too much. Livid at the State of North Carolina for its barrier-building tactics that threatened her ability to vote, she declared defeat and gave up on the mail-in ballot, seething.
The doctor and his team determined that she was well enough3 to go home on October 31st. On that day, a friend picked her up and delivered her home, into the plush arms of a motorized La-Z-Boy chair she originally purchased for my ailing grandfather. I arrived on Sunday. Two days before the election.
Polk County in North Carolina has a total population of 20,060 according to the United States Census Bureau. Saluda, the town my mother lives in, has a population of 643. A megalopolis it is not. Every vote always counts, but every vote really counts in a town of less than 700. And so, although traumatized by her wreck and the storm that swallowed Western Carolina, and frustrated by her physically shattered condition, she found renewed determination to exercise her civic duty.
On election day, my mother’s brother Sam arrived at 9am to gingerly load her into the car. They drove a mile and a half down the hill to the elementary school where they both voted, my uncle on his two feet and my mother in her new black wheelchair. The vote-by-mail debacle had not gotten the best of her. She was achy but her ballot had been cast. That afternoon, she dozed in the La-z-Boy with a bowl of half-eaten chili by her side.
The coda to this red tape saga is that, according to the North Carolina BoE website, my mother’s vote has still not yet been counted, a week after the election, for opaque and bureaucratic reasons we cannot yet ascertain. We are keeping an eye on it. By my back-of-the-envelope calculation, there were 9.9 million fewer votes cast for president in 2024 than there were in 20204. I don’t know what to make of that. I could speculate, but I would probably be wrong. What I do know is that my mom was hit by a firetruck and still – despite the State’s best efforts to convolute, obfuscate, and discourage at every turn – she voted.
From the NC State Board of Elections website: A near relative or legal guardian may request a ballot on behalf of the voter. A near relative is the voter’s: Spouse, brother, sister, parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, mother-in-law, father-in-law, daughter-in-law, son-in-law, stepparent, or stepchild. If you need assistance requesting a ballot due to disability, you may choose any person to make that request for you – This last part relating to disability assistance was added after the decision of a federal judge to strike down a North Carolina rule that greatly impacted those who had no near relatives, were in nursing homes, and/or did not have legal representation.
Regulations are written differently on the NC State Board of Elections website. For example, “facility” is defined as a hospital, clinic, nursing home, or adult care home. A small, but significant difference that could get a ballot thrown out.
What they meant by “well,” I don’t know. The woman cannot walk and is essentially trapped in her home, unable to independently negotiate the three steps that it takes to get from her backdoor to the carport and the car she can’t drive. By “well”, I guess they meant that Medicare had run out.
I got this number by subtracting the total vote count in 2020 (158,429,631) from the total vote count as we know it on Monday, November 11, 2024 (148,470,404). The 2024 vote count will surely rise over the next few days, but I can’t imagine there are multiple-millions of votes floating out there.
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This is a crazy story. Many people -- especially imagining those who don't have supportive family nearby -- would have given up at any one of these points! And I wouldn't have faulted them for deciding it wasn't worth it!
[I DO however fault our elected officials who decide it's preferable to prevent honest people from voting, in order to "fix" a negligible or nonexistent amount of supposed "voter fraud"]
Wow. Angering and ridiculous. State laws should not involve a "Gotcha!" But a lot of times it seems that's the way they're written. I'm glad your mom got her vote in but she should've been able to vote-by-mail a bit easier instead of venturing to the polls in her condition. Voting should not be difficult.