Sep 18, 2024 - News

After RFK Jr. ruling, ballot reprints will cost Mecklenburg County about $25,000

Alexandria Sands

Illustration of a misprinted ballot with ballot elements in the background. — $25,000 is no small chunk of change. But it's a small portion of the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections' $9 million budget. Illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios

Mecklenburg County will lose an estimated $25,000 from throwing out and replacing ballots with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s name, the county's Board of Elections director Michael Dickerson tells Axios.

Why it matters: After the state's conservative-majority Supreme Court ruled the State Board of Elections must remove the former presidential candidate's name, 2.9 million ballots across the state must be destroyed, costing counties across North Carolina approximately $1 million.

Zoom in: Mecklenburg County had about 8,000 ballots from its vendor and around 11,000 ballots it produced itself from blank stock, Dickerson says.

Zoom out: Wake County, which orders full-face ballots, had about 20,000 with RFK Jr.'s candidacy, WRAL reports. The reprints cost taxpayers there about $66,000.

What they're saying: $25,000 is no small chunk of change. But it's a small portion of the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections' $9 million budget.

"You budget for the worst and hope for the best, so hopefully we can make up that difference somewhere else," Dickerson says.

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After RFK Jr. ruling, ballot reprints will cost Mecklenburg County about $25,000

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