Tucked inside the 49 pages of broad changes to the state’s election laws approved by the General Assembly last year is a section dealing with absentee voting modifications. Lawmakers last year attempted to standardize and simplify the application process while making absentee voting more secure.

The changes make the absentee ballot application more accessible. They allow a voter to print out an absentee ballot application from the State Board of Elections and county elections board websites.

“In the voter guide we just sent out, there’s an absentee ballot request form,” said Don Wright, general counsel to the State Board of Elections. Wright noted that the guide is being sent to 4.2 million North Carolina households.

Previously, a voter had to submit either a handwritten request to the local elections board, or a form generated by the county board of elections.

Brent Laurenz, executive director of the N.C. Center for Voter Education, said the streamlined rules should help expedite the absentee ballot process. “With the standardized form, it would allow political parties to get a list of people they want to vote and mail it to them,” Laurenz said.

“I think it’s just largely a wash,” said Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, a chief architect of the new election law, on whether the changes make casting an absentee ballot easier or more difficult.

Lewis noted that opponents of establishing a voter ID requirement to cast a ballot were critical that lawmakers weren’t doing anything to prevent absentee ballot fraud.

Absentee balloting allows voters to cast their ballots through the mail, as opposed to voting in person on Election Day, or voting in person during the early-voting period.

The absentee ballot application also has its own ID requirement. Applicants must provide their N.C. driver’s license number or DMV-issued ID card number, or provide the last four digits of their Social Security number.

Voters who don’t have either of those must provide a copy of a current and valid photo identification, or a copy of a document showing their name and residential address, such as a current utility bill, a bank statement, a paycheck, a government check, or another government document.

There’s also a change in the number of witnesses required. Previously, a voter had to complete the absentee ballot in the presence of one witness. The new law requires either two witnesses or a notary public.

“I don’t think any of the requirements are onerous,” Lewis said. “I just think they’re used to improve the overall integrity of the whole process.”

Patients in hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and rest homes still can use absentee ballots to vote. However, patients no longer can get the assistance of owners or employees of the facility where the voter resides. Others who will be barred from assisting patients from casting absentee ballots include office-holders, candidates, campaign managers, and campaign treasurers.

“That’s just to make sure there’s no coercion used or undue influence to get folks to vote in any way other than the way their heart says they should vote,” Lewis said.

That change came after a 2012 report from Carolina Journal that group home staff members helped patients vote without consulting parents and legal guardians before the ballots were cast. In one case, the parents of an adult child who lived at the group home said their child did not have the mental capacity to make an informed choice to vote.

Absentee ballot request forms must arrive at the voter’s county board of elections no later than 5 p.m. on the Tuesday before the date of the election. For the May 6 primary, they need to be into the local board of elections by 5 p.m. April 29.

The completed absentee ballot must be returned to the county board of elections no later than 5 p.m. on the date of the election. Ballots received after 5 p.m. on Election Day will be considered timely only if they have a postmark dated on or before the date of the election, and received no later than 5 p.m. on the third day following the election.

Wright noted that separate rules give more leeway to military and overseas absentee voters returning ballots by mail.

Barry Smith (@Barry_Smith) is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.