Attorney General challenges mail-in voting order, says military and absentee voters could be harmed

North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson announced Friday that he is challenging a presidential executive order on mail-in voting, arguing the order could interfere with how states administer elections and put some absentee ballots at risk. In the release, Jackson said the order could affect hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians who vote by mail, including active-duty military members and voters casting ballots after disasters.

Jackson said North Carolina military members can currently request and receive absentee ballots up until the day before an election, which can matter when deployments happen on short notice. He argued the executive order would create a high risk that ballots mailed within 60 days of an election could be rejected by the Postal Service, effectively disenfranchising some voters.

The lawsuit places North Carolina in a broader legal fight over who controls election administration and how far the federal government can go in setting rules for mail voting. For North Carolina, the case also carries added weight because military and overseas voting has already been a politically sensitive issue in recent election disputes.

The attorney general’s announcement is a statement of legal action, not a court ruling. The next question for North Carolina voters and election officials will be whether the challenged order is blocked, narrowed, or allowed to move forward as the 2026 election cycle continues.

Editor’s note: This article was drafted with the assistance of artificial intelligence and was reviewed and fact-checked by a member of the NC Political News editorial team before publication.