Judge Halts New North Carolina Absentee Witness Info Rule

A federal judge has blocked updated North Carolina absentee voting rules that gave voters more leeway to fix witness problems and extended the period when elections boards could accept mailed-in ballots. U.S. District Judge James Dever issued a temporary retraining order on Saturday that halted the updated rules that resulted from a legal settlement with voting rights advocates. The revised rules allowed voters who returned absentee ballots with incomplete witness information to fix the problems by returning an affidavit, rather than starting the ballot over from scratch and having it witnessed again. North Carolina law requires one witness for an absentee ballot.