Charlotte Observer (Editorial): NC needs to make voting by mail easier during the pandemic, but a top Republican may block the way.

North Carolina election officials estimate that the share of voters who will vote by mail in this year of pandemic could be as high as 40 percent, up from 4 percent in the 2016 presidential election. If the election occurs amid a second surge of COVID-19 cases this fall – as some experts expect – the mail-in vote percentage could soar even higher.

Millions of voters voting by mail for the first time will require extra resources for election boards and should be accompanied by a streamlining of the state’s absentee voting process. A change requiring a second witness to an absentee ballot adopted in 2013 made the process more complicated, and this year could reduce the number of people who will vote at all.

Despite the likely surge in people avoiding the polls, House Speaker Tim Moore vowed last week to block any significant changes that would encourage widespread voting by mail. …

Under current North Carolina law, voters wishing to vote absentee must download a request form for a mail-in ballot, mail or deliver the request form and then return their ballot with their notarized signature, or with the signatures of two witnesses. Some supporters of adopting voting to the realities of social distancing say that the state – at least for this year – should send all of North Carolina’s registered voters an absentee ballot request form. Voters who receive a ballot could mail it back with their signature alone, or perhaps just one witness’s signature, as was the law prior to 2013. Those who ask for an absentee ballot still have the option of voting in person so long as they don’t vote absentee.

Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina and an advocate of the changes, notes that more than 70 percent of North Carolina households have two or fewer members. Requiring voters to meet with a notary or have two others witness a ballot could require more contact than some voters want.

Providing North Carolinians an opportunity to vote without risk is not a threat to democracy. It is democracy itself.