- A federal judge has signed off on a deal to end Republican groups' 2024 lawsuit over North Carolina's rules for mail-in ballot envelopes.
- The deal originally announced in September calls for the North Carolina State Board of Elections to reconsider a decision about the rules.
- The North Carolina Republican Party and Republican National Committee had challenged guidance issued in 2021 by elections board executive director Karen Brinson Bell. Bell has since been replaced.
A federal judge has signed off on a deal ending Republican groups’ lawsuit over rules linked to mail-in election ballots in North Carolina.
The deal announced in September calls for the Republican-majority North Carolina State Board of Elections to revisit rules adopted for ballot envelopes in 2021, when Democrats controlled the board. State and national Republican Party groups filed suit against the rules in 2024.
The North Carolina Alliance for Retired Americans, an activist group working with Democratic operative Marc Elias’ law firm had opposed the deal. Yet the group never filed a court document responding to the proposed settlement.
“The proposed consent judgment is fair, adequate, and reasonable,” US Chief District Judge Richard Myers wrote in an order Thursday. President Donald Trump appointed Myers. “It ends costly litigation, directs each party to bear its own costs, and allows the Board of Elections to reconsider its earlier position without requiring the Board to change its position. Likewise, the consent judgement is neither illegal, the product of collusion, nor against the public interest.”
“Most importantly, the agreement is in the public interest,” Myers added. “It allows the Board of Elections to do its job: ensuring that elections in North Carolina happen in a fair and legal manner.”
The lawsuit challenged a memo former elections board executive director Karen Brinson Bell issued in June 2021. It offered guidance on how county elections boards should interpret state laws for voters’ use of container-return envelopes when casting mail-in ballots.
The North Carolina Republican Party and Republican National Committee argued that the memo “misinterpreted” state law. In August 2024, the Democrat-led state elections board issued a ruling upholding Bell’s guidance.
The Republican groups filed suit against Bell and the elections board in state court in September 2024. The board moved the case to federal court the following month.
The elections board flipped from a 3-2 Democratic majority to a 3-2 Republican board in May, thanks to the provisions of 2024’s Senate Bill 382. That legislation gave State Auditor Dave Boliek, a Republican, authority to appoint the board. One of the new board’s first actions was to replace Bell with Sam Hayes.
Now the GOP groups and the current elections board “agree that, within 60 days of the entry of this Consent Judgment, the NCSBE will reconsider Plaintiffs’ previously submitted request for a declaratory ruling” about the ballot envelope laws, Myers wrote.
The board will consider the request “as if submitted anew, and will grant the request for a declaratory ruling pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat.§ 150B-4(al)(l). This reconsideration may result in the NCBSE altering its position on the interpretation of the CRE Statutes, but the NCSBE is not required to alter that position,” Myers explained.
“Consistent with N.C. Gen. Stat. § 150B-4(a), any substantive decision on a declaratory ruling request that differs from the previous declaratory ruling would be prospective only,” Myers added. That means the decision would affect only future elections.
In return, the Republican groups will drop their lawsuit. If they disagree with the elections board’s decision, they would be free to file a new complaint.
“The North Carolina General Assembly has enacted several laws intended to prevent tampering with absentee ballots by requiring that absentee voters seal their ballots in container-return envelopes before submitting the ballots to county boards of elections. The North Carolina State Board of Elections … has advised the county boards that they may disregard the clear requirements of those laws and count absentee ballots that are not returned in sealed container-return envelopes,” Republican lawyers wrote in a November 2024 court filing defending the lawsuit. “Plaintiffs filed this lawsuit to stop the NCSBE from disregarding the unambiguous requirements of North Carolina law.”
The suit arose from the State Board of Elections revising its Numbered Memo 2021-03, which implements various laws governing absentee ballots.
The revised memo stated that absentee ballots did not need to be returned in sealed container-return envelopes to be counted, the Republican groups argued. This policy directly conflicts with statutes specifying that they must be returned in sealed container-return envelopes.
The RNC said the policy violated North Carolina state law and weakened absentee ballot safeguards.
“This decision by the NCSBE is inconsistent with state law and diminishes protections for absentee ballots,” then-RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said at the time. “We have filed suit to uphold election integrity and ballot safeguards. State law lays out clear requirements, and the NCSBE must follow them — we will continue to fight for election integrity in the Old North State.”
Whatley is now running for North Carolina’s open US Senate seat in 2026.