More than 200,000 North Carolina voters have requested absentee ballots so far for this year's general election. Absentee ballots requested by military and overseas voters started going out last week and on Tuesday ballots start going out to all properly registered voters who requested them.
The start of absentee voting in North Carolina got delayed by a couple of weeks. By court order, ballots had be reprinted without Robert F. Kennedy Junior's name on them after he suspended his presidential campaign, backed Donald Trump and wanted off ballots in battleground states.
Meanwhile, the FBI is investigating suspicious mailings sent to elections officials in several states, including North Carolina. An envelope containing a powdery substance addressed to the North Carolina elections board was intercepted at a state mail service center last week.
The substance turned out not to be hazardous. But elections staff are now wearing protective gloves to handle mail.