No, North Carolina’s ballot order doesn’t show ‘attempt at voter manipulation’

A social media post claims that North Carolina’s ballot for the November election has been "manipulated" to hurt former President Donald Trump.

"Reports show Trump is poised to appear near the bottom of the ballot in North Carolina," the Aug. 27 post says on X, formerly Twitter. "This is indefensible and a clear attempt at voter manipulation."

A day after the claim was posted, it had been viewed nearly 1 million times.

Pundits and political strategists pay attention to the order of names on a ballot because candidates whose names are listed first tend to perform better than candidates whose names are listed further down the ballot, researchers have found. 

The names of some of Trump’s presidential election opponents do appear higher than Trump’s on the North Carolina ballot. But there’s no evidence that the ballot was manipulated.

North Carolina state law requires the order of candidates’ names to be determined by a drawing, and election officials have used the same process for many years.

For this year’s election, the state board conducted the drawing Dec. 15. 

First, election officials place 26 balls, each labeled with a letter of the alphabet, in a bingo wheel.An election official spins the wheel until a ball comes out.

This year, the ball showed the letter D.

Then, election officials flip a coin to see whether candidates will be listed in alphabetical order (heads) or reverse alphabetical order (tails). 

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This year, the coin showed heads, meaning the candidates would appear on ballots in alphabetical order, starting with the letter D. The candidates are sorted by last name. 

That’s how the state elections board determined that the candidates would appear in the following order: D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, A, B, C.

As a result, the names of five presidential candidates — Kamala Harris, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Chase Oliver, Jill Stein, and Randall Terry — appear above Trump’s name on the ballot. 

Kennedy recently suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump. However, his name remains on the ballot because the We The People party — which nominated Kennedy — has not asked the state elections board to remove his name from the ballot.

If President Joe Biden hadn’t dropped out of the race, his name would have appeared on the ballot last.

Trump had better luck in previous drawings, appearing first on the ballot in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. 

In 2020, candidates’ names appeared alphabetically starting with the letter O. In 2016, candidates’ names appeared alphabetically starting with the letter H.

PolitiFact NC contacted the X user who claimed this year’s ballot was manipulated, but the user didn’t respond. 

The post said the order of names listed on North Carolina’s ballot shows a "clear attempt at voter manipulation."

There’s no evidence North Carolina’s election ballot has been manipulated. We rate this claim False.