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By-mail voters in North Carolina can track ballots in May primary

Vote Here sign
Erik Hersman
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Creative Commons https://bit.ly/1ezRl1S

Absentee and by-mail voters in North Carolina will again be able to track the status of their ballots for the May 17 statewide primary election.

The N.C. Board of Elections is again offering a service called BallotTrax, which was first available in the 2020 general election, according to a news release from the the board.

BallotTrax will allow by-mail voters to track their ballot throughout the voting process, from when it’s sent by the county board of elections to when the completed ballot is received by election officials. The service sends a series of alerts to the voter as the ballot moves through the process.

More than 400,000 state voters signed up for the service in 2020. That year, 1,001,717 people in the state cast absentee by-mail ballots, according to the State Board of Elections.

“By tracking their ballot, voters can have peace of mind that their ballot was received by their county board of elections,” said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections. “This is one of the many ways North Carolina elections officials are helping voters ensure that their vote counts.”

Registered voters who wish to vote by mail and track their ballot may create a BallotTrax account. Voters who signed up for BallotTrax in 2020 or 2021 should still be in the system and will not have to sign up again unless the voter moved to a different county.

Voters who vote in person will not use this service because they will submit their ballots directly into tabulation machines to be counted.

With an account, voters will be able to:

  • Log in to view the status of their absentee by-mail request and ballot. This includes confirmation that the county board of elections has received the request, that the ballot has been mailed to the voter, and that the completed ballot has been received by the county board of elections.
  • Learn if their ballot cannot be accepted because of issues such as a missing signature or witness information. If this occurs, the county board of elections will provide information to the voter on how to correct the issue.
  • Sign up for email, text, and/or voice alerts for status updates.

There will be three ways to vote in North Carolina this year: In-person on Election Day, early in-person voting, and voting by-mail.
The May 17 primary will feature races for U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, the N.C. General Assembly, N.C. Supreme Court, and Court of Appeals.

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