State elections board Executive Director Kim Strach, at the request of a federal court panel ruling on the North Carolina’s legislative districts, filed a 16-page report detailing the administrative processes and costs to implement a special legislative election in 2017.

Here are some the key elements from the report (link here):

  • A statewide primary for a special election likely would cost counties $6.5 million, plus the cost of one-stop early voting. A statewide general election would cost about $9.5 million.
  • Redistricting requires both state and county elections administrators to assign individual voters to their proper jurisdiction, a “largely manual process.” In some cases, elections administrators must assign voters to new jurisdictions on a street-by-street basis.
  • The coding in the state’s information system could take about three weeks once the state board received the jurisdiction files.
  • Voter coding in the information system and candidate filing must be final before ballot preparation can begin.
  • The process of generating and proofing ballot styles is highly complex and involves multiple technical systems and quality control checkpoints.
  • Elections officials need to factor in time for absentee ballot requests — 50 days before Election Day — and a 17-day one-stop early voting period, beginning 20 days before Election Day.
  • A special election in 2017 would “almost certainly require” the General Assembly to consolidate municipal election calendars statewide.