WRAL Poll Finds North Carolinians Overwhelmingly Support Election Day Mail-in Ballot Deadline
Poll shows 56% support for making Election Day the deadline for mail-in ballots
SurveyUSA: “Proposal to require all mail-in ballots, including military ballots from overseas, to arrive by Election Day backed by 2:1 margin of voters.”
Raleigh, N.C. — According to a poll conducted by SurveyUSA on behalf of WRAL-TV, a proposal to move the mail-in ballot deadline to Election Day in North Carolina enjoys overwhelming support. Yet, WRAL has barely covered this result, even though at least eight articles have been published covering other polls it had SurveyUSA conduct.
On SurveyUSA’s website, it says voters support the Election Day deadline by a “2:1 margin.”
On Monday, April 11, WRAL-TV aired the results as part of a larger segment on the SurveyUSA poll. An online news article posted the same day did not include any written mention of the mail-in ballot deadline question but covered other aspects of the survey.
It’s not surprising that WRAL would barely cover this result. Its opinion section blasted the proposal, calling it “arbitrary and nonsensical.”
“North Carolinians broadly support changing the deadline to receive mail-in ballots to Election Day. Changing the deadline boosts confidence in our elections. Maybe now legislative Democrats and Gov. Cooper will stop peddling their false narrative that this policy is an attempt at voter suppression,” Sen. Paul Newton (R-Cabarrus), who serves as the chairman of the Senate Redistricting and Elections Committee, said.
Late last year, Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed a bill to move the deadline to Election Day.
Election Day is the election deadline in Democratic-controlled states like Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon, Rhode Island, and others.
FiveThirtyEight gives SurveyUSA an “A” rating. According to SurveyUSA, 2,500 North Carolina adults were interviewed between April 6 and April 10 for the poll. Of those interviewed, 2,068 are registered to vote in North Carolina. The poll has a plus or minus 2.7 percentage point credibility interval.
*NOTE: This release has been updated to correct the on-air coverage of the poll results.
