Was the GOP Collecting Completed Absentee Ballots in NC HQ That Was Firebombed?

Fox News: ‘Absentee Ballots Burned in Office Attack’

After Sunday’s despicable and horrific attack on the Orange County, North Carolina offices of the Republican party, GOP spokesperson Emily Weeks told NBC News “that materials inside, possibly including completed absentee ballots, may have been destroyed.”

Fox News appears to have reported “absentee ballots burned in office attack.”

If completed absentee ballots were housed in the GOP’s headquarters, that could be a violation of North Carolina’s State Board of Election’s rules.

When asked if the GOP could have been collecting completed absentee voter ballots, Tracy Ream, the Director of North Carolina’sÂ Orange County Board of Elections toldÂ The New Civil Rights Movement via telephone Monday, “they cannot do that.” She cited theÂ State Board of Elections rules.

Once complete, the absentee ballot “must be returned to the county board of electionsÂ no laterÂ than 5:00 p.m. on the date of the election,” the State Board of Elections website reads. “The envelope may be mailed or delivered in person to the board of electionsâ€™ office. Only the voter or the voter’s near relative (spouse, brother, sister, parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, mother-in-law, father-in-law, daughter-in-law, son-in-law, stepparent, stepchild or qualified legal guardian) may deliver an absentee ballot in person.”

Ream told NCRM it “does not make sense” that the GOP office would be collecting completed absentee ballots, and said her office has not sent the Republican Party blank absentee ballots.Â

“No one would be collecting” absentee ballots, Ream told NCRM. Asked if she could imagine a scenario where the GOP could be collecting completed ballots, Ream said: “I really can’t.”

And yet, the North Carolina GOP is telling the media “that materials inside, possibly including completed absentee ballots, may have been destroyed.”