NC county tells residents to mark misdelivered election mail 'return to sender'

North Carolina’s Wake County Board of Elections faced scrutiny for instructing residents to mark ballots mistakenly sent to them “return to sender.”

Election-integrity activist Scott Presler posted a screenshot on X of a previous post from the Wake County Board of Elections. The post instructed residents who received mail from the board intended for someone who no longer lived at their address should write “return to sender” on the envelope and give it to the US Postal Service (USPS).

Obama-appointed JudgeIndira Talwani was slammed for issuing an injunction that blocked President Donald Trump's rules-changes to the United States Postal Service, requiring all mail-in ballots to be scanned and cross-referenced against a database of eligible voters.

"Because of the antics of the left in this case, it’s very possible that we will not be able to get this rule put in place for the 2026 midterms," Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Election Project,told Fox News Digital. "Ballots do go out in just a couple of days, and I think, to a certain extent, their campaign to run out the clock may have succeeded."

Despite the Trump administration's request that it wait until the issue was resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court, North Carolina began sending mail-in ballots on Sept. 4 in compliance with state law.

Recent audits have uncovered hundreds of thousands of ineligible voters on the state voter rolls, including an April analysis that found 34,000 dead people.

Blue districts — including deep-blue Wake County, which encompasses Raleigh — told the recipients of any errant ballots to just stick them back in the mail.

Presler questioned how many ballots were ultimately marked “return to sender” by USPS and suggested that such ballots could potentially be intercepted and used by someone else.

North Carolina’s State Board of Elections approved updated guidelines last week regarding mail-in ballots, shortly before ballots were to be sent out to voters. The guidelines address the standards county election officials will use when determining whether an absentee ballot can be counted, including requirements concerning signatures matching the name on the ballot.

The guidelines also state that only a relative or legal guardian can deliver a voter's mail-in ballot on their behalf.

“This is simply guidance, updated guidance, I might add, as to what the board and staff at the county level will do and how they will process things,” said Republican board member Stacy Eggers, according to The Hill.

North Carolina Democratic Governor Josh Stein told the outlet that the decision was a “slap in the face to voters who stood up to these changes and a blatant circumvention of the law.”

“North Carolina voters deserve transparency in their elections, not last-minute workarounds that could keep their vote from counting. I will continue to stand up for voters’ access to the ballot box,” Stein said in a statement.