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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.

Concerned about the impact of the novel coronavirus on the 2020 election, states are scrambling to dramatically increase mail-in voting. CNN's Marshall Cohen speaks with Common Cause's Sylvia Albert and others who explain what that means for you.

Joanne Antoine, executive director of Common Cause Maryland, said voting advocates aimed to avoid that very situation, but are hopeful there will be fewer problems with voters receiving their ballots in June. The special election on Tuesday was arranged too quickly for the state to launch a widespread voter education campaign, she told reporters on a conference call Tuesday afternoon. She urged Hogan to ensure adequate funding for extensive communications ahead of the primary. “I’m sure we would have seen more voters participating in the 7th District special election if more of an effort was made to reach them,” Antoine said.

“In the same way that 2000 led to no more hanging chads,” says Sylvia Albert, the director of voting and elections at Common Cause, a nonpartisan good-government organization, “I would hope that this election leads to proper investment and modernization in our election system.”

Not so, an elections expert said. “This is a totally separate matter,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, a nonprofit group that advocates for eased ballot access. “You’re comparing apples to oranges.” Albert noted that Congress determines the timing of federal elections and that the president does not have the power to change that.

The Maryland chapter of the watchdog group Common Cause will send scouts to the voting centers to make sure voters are following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and Hogan’s orders to wear masks and remain at least six feet apart. Activists are allowed, as usual, to campaign as long as they remain at least 100 feet from the polling center. Joanne Antoine, executive director of Common Cause in Maryland, said she worries people who didn’t receive ballots will crowd voting centers, defeating their purpose. “The concern is whether we will see people going to these in-person voting centers, which is what the board [of elections] was trying to avoid in the first place,” she said.