In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Rachel Raper, the Director of Elections for Orange County, North Carolina.
They spoke about the unique way the state tracks and traces back mail ballots to voters, and about how election administrators have overcome many of the challenges that have impacted North Carolina in the last few years.
High Turnout, Wide Margins Credits:
Managing Editor: Rebecca Smith
Managing Producer: Aaron Hay
Associate Producer: Katie Quinn
Digital Producer: Mark Johnson
Transcription of the episode is as follows:
Rachel Raper: For any situation that happens, we have to look at – what can't we control, and what can we control, and really pour our resources into the things that we can control and, really, remaining transparent – that's, I think that's something that is very important to me and this office, is being transparent to voters and for voters to feel like we are a resource for them to call that. We want them to call. We want to work through any issue they may have.
[High Turnout Wide Margins Introduction]
Eric Fey: Welcome to another exciting episode of High Turnout Wide Margins. I'm Eric Fey, Director of Elections in St. Louis County, Missouri, with my co host –
Brianna Lennon: Brianna Lennon. I'm the County Clerk in Boone County, Missouri,
Eric Fey: And today our guest is – Rachel, go ahead and introduce yourself.
Rachel Raper: Hi. I'm Rachel Raper, and I'm Director of Elections in Orange County, North Carolina.
Eric Fey: That I think sparks the first question – do you know, do you keep a count of how many Orange Counties there are across the country?
Rachel Raper: So, enough that I have to be sure that I say “North Carolina.”
Laughter
Eric Fey: Yeah, because there are some big ones in, like, Florida and California have big Orange County.
Rachel Raper: So, I feel like there's a little New York too, but I think once people start talking to me – by process of elimination, they feel like it's not California, it's not New York.
Laughter
Brianna Lennon: Do you get a lot – I mean, not to go down that path, but do you get a lot of, like, mail and emails for the other Orange Counties?
Rachel Raper: We have before. We actually received, in the 2020 election, an absentee ballot for Orange County, California, and we made sure it got to where it needed to be in Orange County, California.
And there's a hill – there are several, I’m in Hillsborough. That's the town seat of Orange County, and there are also quite a few Hillsboroughs, and that's where we get the most phone traction or those who were looking for a Hillsborough just not this one.
Brianna Lennon: That’s interesting. We get a lot of Boone County ones, too. There's Boone County Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky –
Rachel Raper: There's a Boone in North Carolina.
Brianna Lennon: Oh, there you go.
Eric Fey: So Rachel, back to what we're actually doing here. We always start with every guest asking them, “How did you get involved in elections? What's your elections origin story?”
Rachel Raper: Yes, my origin story – I think that I had determined in college, early in college, that I wanted to be a lawyer, and then when it came time for law school applications, I thought, “I need to take a break here,” and I just happened to be – this was back in the day, 20 years ago, when there were job ads in newspapers, and I happened to be just flipping through a newspaper and saw an ad for a Deputy of Elections Director in Currituck County, North Carolina, and just thought that sounded really interesting. I majored in Political Science, and just thought it was a way to take a year off from school, learn some things, and so, I applied. I got the job, and my director at the time said, “Elections is something you were going to either love or you are going to hate. There is no in between.” I went through my first election in 2006 and realized that I loved elections, and so, I started in Currituck as Deputy Director. I became director in 2014 and then I saw a job ad – this time it was on the internet – in 2017 for the Director of Elections in Orange County, and I had just visited Orange County, Chapel Hill to take a class at the School of Government, the UNC School of Government, and had just fallen in love with the area and thought, you know, “Why not?” So I applied, and I got the job here in Orange County, and just absolutely love it here.
Brianna Lennon: So, one of the interesting elements, to me, of North Carolina elections – and you can, I mean, feel free to share as much about Orange County as like demographics and stuff to kind of set the scene – but through the last election and the more high profile cases, I guess, that have come out of North Carolina. One of the things that was really interesting to me – because it's a full circle moment of talking about ballot styles and ballot creation – is that I had always assumed in the way that when we do our ballots and our absentee ballots, when they go out, aside from the envelope itself that has identifying information on the voter, there's nothing on the ballot itself that we could tie back together a ballot with a person. Once it's out of that envelope, it's done. We can't do anything about it. Just like if they vote on Election Day, once they cast their ballot on Election Day – it's in that tabulator. We can't tie back to anybody. But through some of that litigation that happened recently, there were conversations about, like, being able to sequester things and being able to point back to this particular voter was not or should not have been counted, and so, we're going to take that ballot out. How does that system work in North Carolina?
Rachel Raper: So, yes, for our absentee by mail and our early voting voters, there is a number that is associated with their ballot that we write on the ballot, and that number is tied back to that voter. When a voter requests a ballot or gets an early voting application, there is an application number that we do put on the ballots – we write on the ballot, or if we have ballot on demand systems, it prints on the ballot for us.
And so, yes, in North Carolina, if you vote early or by mail, and your ballot is challenged, and that challenge is sustained, we can then go back through our ballots, and we can pull that ballot, and then we could subtract those votes from the actual count. And that happened – that happened in Orange County, we had several voters that we received records from the Department of Health & Human Services, that those voters have passed away prior to Election Day. And so, we removed those ballot counts. We also removed the ballot counts of two voters who had committed felonies. So, that is a process that we do go through here in North Carolina if you can vote on Election Day, as judged by your status as of Election Day. So, if you are not eligible to vote on Election Day and your vote is challenged – then those vote totals are removed from our certified count.
Brianna Lennon: So, I mean, is that, is there any history to or has there been any kind of challenge to that, where people have thought, “I don't really love that that can happen?” Or is that just kind of how it is and everybody's really used to it.
Rachel Raper: It's been business as usual since, like I said, I started in 2005 and it was already the practice then in 2005. Sometimes we have voters who ask, “Why are you writing a number on my ballot?” And then we explain that if you are not eligible to vote on Election Day, your ballot can be challenged, and if the board finds that you were not eligible, then we will remove your ballot totals from the certified count.
And we also talk about all the security in our office. Every ballot here in Orange County is underneath a video camera. Our ballots are in sealed ballot bags that it is obvious if someone opens that ballot bag. And so, when we are removing these ballots, we're doing so in the presence of our bipartisan Board of Elections. This is not something that is done in a closet somewhere. It is a very transparent process that, again, is done before our bipartisan board
Eric Fey: But this – and I don't know what the right word is for it this – identifying the ballots, that doesn't apply to Election Day ballots, is that right?
Rachel Raper: It does not. On Election Day, there is not anything written on your ballot because if someone is to challenge you, they have to do it prior to you getting that ballot and putting it into the tabulator.
Eric Fey: Interesting. So – and you mentioned a few, a couple scenarios you've had there in Orange County about folks who have died or been convicted of felonies – is there another challenge process in North Carolina? Maybe, could you explain what the challenge process is a little?
Rachel Raper: So, yes. A voter can challenge another voter’s vote due to certain circumstances, and, again, having information that the person is deceased or a convicted felon are some of those circumstances.
But North Carolina also does excellent list maintenance. So, we weekly get lists from the Department of Health & Human Services – and, again, this is going on on a weekly basis – of those who have passed away and were Orange County residents, and so, we are doing that list maintenance while an election is happening. So, we are the ones who, staff here are the ones who realize that this person, this is the same voter, and so, we alert our board, we hold a challenge hearing, we mail notification to the voter – and clearly they're deceased, but it does, if there is, just happens to be a mix up, it does allow someone to get a letter to see, “Hey, my vote is being challenged, and I am very much alive.” But again, we are basing this challenge on exact date of birth, exact last four of social. So, this is an exact match of a voter, and then we present this information to the board at a notice challenge hearing, and we allow time for anyone to – who may object to the challenge, the voter – to present. And in this, this election, and any other election, we've never had anyone object to the challenge, or any voter come to the challenge hearing. And so, the board, again, reviews the information, they review the documentation, so that they can decide, again, a bipartisan board makes the ultimate decision of whether or not this challenge should happen. And if it does, if the board says “yes, this is the same voter. They are deceased.” Then, again, we get the ballot bags in front of the board. We cut that ballot bag open, we find that ballot, and then the board is who goes through a tally sheet and makes sure that all votes that this person cast are subtracted from the certified total.
Brianna Lennon: So, I guess I had thought that it was a kind of programming thing that happened on the ballots. But you're saying, like, when those situations happen – is somebody handwriting on these things? How does that process work in terms of, like, logistically getting the number onto the ballot?
Rachel Raper: So, it is – a program election information management system is the program that creates that application number, and during early voter voting, a voter will come, they will check in. We use that CMS (Election Admin Platform) program to print the authorization to vote form that has that application number on the form. A precinct official will take a ballot, or an election official will take a ballot and then write that number, that application number on the ballot before giving that ballot to the voter. So, it is a program that creates that application number, but most of the time it is a human who is transcribing the number from a form to a ballot.
Eric Fey: And the humans get it right 100% of the time, right? They write the right number on there all the time?
Rachel Raper: Of course, which is why in Orange County, we use ballot on demand, and that is – a computer is what prints the ballot, the number on the ballot, so we can eliminate human error because humans are great in a lot of ways, but they can lose thought sometimes, and just there's a squirrel over here and a number doesn't get written down correctly, or doesn't get written down at all. So, this is, we try in every avenue that we can to eliminate the ability for human error.
[High Turnout Wide Margins Mid-break]
Eric Fey: I know North Carolina last year, you know, had suffered a natural disaster. Mostly, I know, in the mounds, Buncombe County and around there. To what extent, if any, did that affect the remainder of the state, or did the state have to issue new guidance in any form or fashion for voters affected by those natural disasters?
Rachel Raper: Yes, the state did have to issue new guidance. The state also – which was really helpful for us, and especially because we want to be a resource for all voters, not just Orange County voters – but they also created a website that we could direct people with questions about, “How do I vote in western North Carolina” to. It was just a wealth of information, and we were able to accept absentee ballots from voters who were part of the disaster area from western North Carolina, and I've seen the presentations that the western county directors have given, and it's just amazing what those folks had to do and to come together in the circumstances that they had to put on an excellent election with record turnout, and my heart was going out to them the whole time. I can't imagine. I know how difficult it was conducting a presidential [election] with no natural disaster, so I give a huge round of applause to our western folks, election officials who conducted that election in those circumstances.
Brianna Lennon: Were there parts – because I remember talking to people that, it's not necessarily natural disasters, but like, if you know something compromises a mailbox, or something like that, and ballots are compromised, things like that – I can see maybe a relationship between some of the laws that we've already talked about, like, if something were to happen and a bunch of absentee ballots were lost, the fact that they are tracked may have helped be able to make sure that the voters were reached out to, could reconcile things, could vote if they if their ballot got lost or destroyed, or something like that. Were there areas where it – I know you haven't dealt with it yourself – but the law may be helped or needed to be changed in order to be better, to serve those situations? Because I know in COVID, you know, everybody talked about different things we needed to do to improve our laws. I didn't know if that was also something that came out of the natural disasters that had happened.
Rachel Raper: So, the General Assembly in North Carolina was very proactive about meeting and changing election laws in western North Carolina to meet the needs of voters who were in a disaster area. So, laws definitely got changed for that election, and, like you said, there is an upside to having individual ballots tied to voters, so that we can make sure that voters are getting their ballots, the ballots are being sent back to us. And, you know, sometimes ballots do get lost in the mail, and we can resend ballots and make sure that only one voter will ultimately vote one ballot, even if they've been sent five ballots. So, again, laws were changed, just like in COVID. During COVID, the General Assembly in North Carolina did, they changed laws, and so, I appreciate that laws can be changed to meet the needs of election offices and voters when necessary.
Eric Fey: I think, as a distant bystander to what is going on or has gone on in North Carolina, you know, I see the election line email every day, and it just for the last over a year. It just seems like it's always something in North Carolina in terms of election administration. Always some headline – there's the natural disaster you had, the state Supreme Court race that was contested, went all the way to the US Supreme Court, you know, to rule on the finality of it.
Rachel Raper: Federal. It didn’t go to U.S.
Eric Fey: Oh, it didn’t?
Rachel Raper: No, it didn't.
Eric Fey: Okay. Alright.
Rachel Raper: Although I fully expected it to when it was ongoing. That's what I'd said, “that it will go to the Supreme Court,” but it did not. After the federal courts ruled against Judge Griffin. He conceded –
Eric Fey: Oh, okay.
Rachel Raper: – on May 7.
Eric Fey: Of this year? In 2025?
Rachel Raper: In 2025, yes.
Eric Fey: So, you've got that, you've got a big changeover at the state level – the state led your general assembly, I think, changed the law on how the state board is appointed and who's picking the people – and I know there have been a host of other things. With all that in mind, you know, I just sit here and think, “What are you all doing?” Because you still got to just come every day and make the donuts and carry off elections, and so, how do you stay abreast of what's going on – knowing that things happening that I described will affect you in some way, but also making sure your staff, your workers, are still doing what they need to do. And you know, have all the a lot of election directors in North Carolina, have you commiserated about that? You share strategy, things like that. So, yeah, just talk more about that.
Rachel Raper: Always. Misery loves company. So yes, we do share with each other the trials and triumphs of elections, and I think when anything happens – a lot of times, we're hearing about what's going on outside of this bubble in the news. So I just, I'm really fortunate just to have an excellent staff. We come together and we figure out there's a lot that we cannot control, especially when there's a protest or litigation that is now in the hands of the courts. We cannot control the outcome to that. So what can we control? And that's what we focus on.
Just like with the Judge Griffin protest. There was a huge group of voters – 60,000 in North Carolina, who were protested due to having alleged incomplete voter registration records, and 1,500 were here in Orange County. So, what our office did when this was happening – because we are getting phone calls, visits, emails nonstop. People are very upset. They don't understand what's going on, and there's also not a lot of reassurance we can give because, again, it's in the hands of the courts, and I don't know what's going to happen. So, what we did, we came together and said, “Well, what questions can we answer?” And so, we created a database of those 1,500 voters, and we individually, manually reviewed every single record that each voter had – all 1,500 voters – so that we could figure out, “well, why is this application lacking a driver's license number or the last four of their social?” And then we categorized that, so that when voters called, we could very quickly answer their questions and if they needed to update records, or if a number wasn't validated, we had information for that voter. And I think that's – for any situation that happens, we have to look at, what can't we control, and what can we control, and really pour our resources into the things that we can control, and, really, remaining transparent. I think that's something that is very important to me, and this office is being transparent to voters, and for voters to feel like we are a resource for them to call. That we want them to call. We want to work through any issue they may have. And that's just a really big, our guiding principle here in Orange County is just being a resource, a transparent resource to voters.
Eric Fey: I just, as a quick follow up, were you, during all of these various things that were headline grabbing, I mentioned, were you receiving a number of calls or emails from voters asking what was going on or how are you handling this, that kind of thing?
Rachel Raper: It was constant. It was constant. And like you mentioned, it was constant during post-election, which is a very, very busy time. There are a lot of other tasks that we have to do. And again, I'm fortunate in Orange County that I spoke with my county manager. I let my county manager just know what was going on, and said, “I'm going to need temporary staff to make sure that we can serve as a resource to voters while we are also taking care of all the other tasks we have to do.” So, I was allowed to have, just, an excellent temporary worker who could really be the point person with customer service and that face when voters walked in the door and the voice when voters called. So, I was fortunate with that. So yeah, and then just trying, again, day-to-day and take one day at a time.
It's funny, I was, when I knew I was coming on to talk about elections in North Carolina – I kind of went down the 2024 memory Lane, and I guess I just blocked a lot of stuff out and just looking at timelines, and I really thought, “Wow, how did we do all this?” And then, you know, I thought about our western county folks, and just thought, “How did they do all this?” And really, I don't know. I just know that it got done, we're still somewhat sane and here to to go another day,
Brianna Lennon: As you're looking forward to, like, the next election – kind of like Eric had said, North Carolina is always in the news. There's a lot that's going on. What are you, I guess, what are you hoping for? Or what are you trying to kind of prioritize as you're looking forward to the next election?
Rachel Raper: I really like to prioritize just what are, how can we make the best better? That is a 4H slogan, and it's something that I really do love, and that's what our office is always working on – is how to make the best better. How can we serve voters more efficiently? How can we conduct our elections more efficiently? So, to me, it's always about looking at efficiency and just seeing what we can do better, and just having an office conversation about that and trying to dream big and think about voter outreach, and again, just efficiency. That's something that I really focus on because I do have a small staff – a small, full time staff. So, we really have to make sure that we are working smarter and not harder, and so, in the times where we don't have an election, just pressing us flat, that's what we're looking at, is what can we do to be better? And also looking at our neighboring counties and other folks in North Carolina, and just seeing what great things are they doing that we can copy, and so, we do that.
Laughter
Eric Fey: Yeah.
Out of the whole state supreme court challenge – and I do not know the specifics of what is about, I know you alluded to it about having driver's license numbers and SSNs on a tie to voter registration. – so, has anything as a result of that changed for you all in North Carolina about voter registration or what information you have to collect?
Rachel Raper: So, changes are coming. I do believe that changes are coming, and the new executive director, Sam Hayes, has said that his priority is to reach out to voters who might be missing that information and make sure that we get the information. So, I don't know what that process is going to look like. I just read in a recent interview that it sounds like the state board will be mailing notices to voters, but, again, this is just what I have learned from reading interviews. So, I don't know what that process is going to look like, but I do believe that there will be a statewide effort to collect that information for voters who are lacking that information.
Which I do want to say, that any voter who received a ballot, if they did not have a validated driver's license number or last four of their social – they did have to provide proof of identity the first time they voted before receiving a ballot. In Orange County, we process our voters via computer system, so it was physically impossible for a voter, for the system to allow a voter to receive a ballot without providing that information, and that's another good thing about the program that we use, the CMS program that we use (Election Admin Platform). That when these voters called, I could tell a voter that, “Well, the first time you voted was November of 23 and you showed a passport. That's how you proved your identity,” and so, again, no voter received a ballot that did not prove their identity in some way – including now having to show photo ID in North Carolina.
Eric Fey: That's a nuance that was, I think, missed in a lot of the headline news articles across the country.
Rachel Raper: Yes, there were a lot of nuances because I kept on reading in many media reports that the lack of information on the voters record was due to clerical errors, just widespread clerical errors and and that was another reason why we really wanted to go through the records. A big reason was so we could sleep at night – ”Are these voters now being challenged because of something we did?” And so, we went through, again, all 1,500 plus records, and I think there were about 20 records of the 1,500 that we could attribute – the number did not validate due to a clerical error. The rest, the number was just missing, and they proved their identity in another way, or the number just didn't validate, and we have no control over that record validation with the Social Security information, but those were the big chunks of why voters in Orange County did not have numbers associated with their record. It was not due to clerical errors, which is what I kept on reading online – which got under my skin a bit, but, again, a lot of the records just had those numbers missing here in Orange County. The voter just didn't fill that aspect of the application out.
Brianna Lennon: You've been listening to High Turnout Wide Margins, a podcast that explores local elections administration. I'm your host, Brianna Lennon alongside Eric Fey. A big thanks to KBIA and the Election Center for making this podcast possible. Our Managing Editor is Rebecca Smith. Managing Producer is Aaron Hay. Our Associate Producer is Katie Quinn, and our Digital Producer is Mark Johnson. This has been High Turnout Wide Margins. Thanks for listening.
