Who Cures Ballots? Evidence from North Carolina's 2020 General Election

ABSTRACT

Some states specify a cure process so that voters can address deficiencies with returned mail ballots that would cause them to be rejected. We identify three key elements of a cure process that we theorize affect whether voters utilize it to make their ballots count. First, how voters are informed about disqualifying deficiencies on their ballots. Second, the actions available to voters to cure their ballots. Third, whether stakeholders who engage in voter outreach are given information about ballots with disqualifying deficiencies. We highlight the importance of these elements in the cure process used by North Carolina in the 2020 general election. In this election, about 82 percent of the roughly 26,000 voters who submitted mail ballots eligible for a cure process ultimately cast a counted ballot. About 39 percent of these counted ballots were cured in-person, and greater access to in-person curing options increased the likelihood that a ballot was cured. Democratic and non-major party registrants cured their ballots more often than Republican registrants, particularly when they lived in a county in which the Democratic Party was running a coordinated campaign focused on curing. While election officials sometimes attempted to inform voters by phone about the need to cure, there was no clear relationship between having a phone number recorded in a registration record and the likelihood that a ballot was cured.