Is North Carolina going back to paper ballots? It's a question you may have heard and you're not alone. A 2 Wants To Know viewer recently asked that question, so we set out to verify.
QUESTION:
The viewer Marilyn asked, "Is it true that all NC counties will have all voting machines removed and will be only using paper ballots by the 2020 election year?"
PROCESS:
To find our answer, we went to the Guilford County Board of Elections, Charlie Collicutt the Guilford County Elections Supervisor, and the NC Board of Elections.
First off, the General Assembly is requiring all electronic voting machines to be phased out by September 2019. Guilford County Elections Supervisor, Charlie Callicutt says the paper ballots can be in various forms, such as bubble sheets or even a printout.
"No matter what kind of system we're on there will be a computer that counts the ballots, this isn't going to be some kind of old-fashioned system of hand counting, there is an electronic tabulation of some sort no matter what we do." Says Callicutt.
ANSWER:
So yes, we can verify that everyone in North Carolina will be using paper ballots for the 2020 election.