MS NOW’s On the Line host, Alicia Menendez, and New York Times opinion writer Mara Gay teamed up on Wednesday for a conspiracy-ridden and factually-challenged segment that insulted everybody’s intelligence by claiming that Jim Crow is on its way back to North Carolina.
Menendez declared, “I want to zoom in on North Carolina because it's a place where we're seeing evidence that Republican efforts to restrict voting may actually be working. Democracy Docket reports that the state thousands of midterm ballots are set to be rejected over minor technical issues after a federal court upheld strict new Republican-backed rules for mail voters. That's according to data shared exclusively with Democracy Docket.“
She also claimed, “They report that some Democratic strongholds are seeing rejection rates as high as 7 or 8 percent. And just to explain what we're talking about, one of the reasons ballots are being tossed out is because people fail to properly seal the inner envelope of their ballot.”
Alicia Menendez freaks out, "I want to zoom in on North Carolina, because it's a place where we're seeing evidence that Republican efforts to restrict voting may actually be working...And just to explain what we're talking about, one of the reasons ballots are being tossed out is… pic.twitter.com/Yqp2rA6TxW
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) October 22, 2026
Responding to Democracy Docket’s report, WBTV out Charlotte countered, “It is not clear at this time whether the spoiling rate is truly double that from the 2022 midterm cycle at this point, or whether thousands of absentee ballots will be spoiled over the lifetime of this election cycle because of those rules.” [emphasis in original]
One of the counties Democracy Dockett cited was Mecklenburg County, and WBTV reported elections director Mike Dickerson recalling that the spoiled ballot rate in 2022 was nine percent. Thus far, in 2026, it is three percent.
Nevertheless, Menendez kept rolling, “I mean, that is like technocratic at its worst, right? Like, we are living on a different planet. We should be sitting here having a conversation about Election Day as a national holiday, about universal day of registration, the moment when people are most interested in participating in the processes that they can actually become a part of it. Instead, we're having a conversation about people who are trying to participate, got their mail in ballots, and because of dumb technicalities like how the envelope was sealed, may not have their vote counted.”
It took Gay a while, but she eventually did concede that people who have had their ballot rejected will have the opportunity to fix it before Election Day. However, Gay was still quite unreasonable, as she suggested that certain ballot sealing and signature matching requirements for all mail ballots are a race thing:
Well, we should kind of pull back and think about the enormous kind of reversal of reality that we're living through right now. This is not a country that has a history in which voters who are not eligible to vote participated in elections. This is a country that has a history within living memory of refusing to allow large numbers of its population to vote, to have the right to suffrage, because of the color of their skin or other backgrounds.
She also declared, “And so I think that in North Carolina in particular, this is a very dark history. When I read that piece, which I did last night, I thought, you know, this reminds me of the various other mechanisms that Southern states and Jim Crow used to use to deny the right to vote to black Americans. So, poll taxes, literacy, taxes, having to answer, kind of, inane questions about the U.S. Constitution, if you're a black voter, but giving simpler answers or questions to white voters so you don't get to pick and choose in this country who gets the right to vote.”
Gay insisted that "the core tenet of this democracy is that one man, one citizen, one vote. And Donald Trump is threatened by that. The Republicans are absolutely enabling that because they are afraid that they cannot win a fair election. And so we should not allow this to happen. We should talk openly about why this is happening.”
It is utterly ridiculous to suggest that North Carolina is reverting to the Jim Crow days. Such claims deserve to be mocked and ridiculed, not given the aura of respectability.
Here is a transcript for the October 21 show:
MS NOW On The Line with Alicia Menendez
10/21/2026
12:13 PM ET
ALICIA MENENDEZ: I want to zoom in on North Carolina because it's a place where we're seeing evidence that Republican efforts to restrict voting may actually be working. Democracy Docket reports that the state thousands of midterm ballots are set to be rejected over minor technical issues after a federal court upheld strict new Republican-backed rules for mail voters. That's according to data shared exclusively with Democracy Docket.
They report that some Democratic strongholds are seeing rejection rates as high as 7 or 8 percent. And just to explain what we're talking about, one of the reasons ballots are being tossed out is because people fail to properly seal the inner envelope of their ballot.
I mean, that is like technocratic at its worst, right? Like, we are living on a different planet. We should be sitting here having a conversation about Election Day as a national holiday, about universal day of registration, the moment when people are most interested in participating in the processes that they can actually become a part of it.
Instead, we're having a conversation about people who are trying to participate, got their mail in ballots, and because of dumb technicalities like how the envelope was sealed, may not have their vote counted.
MARA GAY: Well, we should kind of pull back and think about the enormous kind of reversal of reality that we're living through right now. This is not a country that has a history in which voters who are not eligible to vote participated in elections. This is a country that has a history within living memory of refusing to allow large numbers of its population to vote, to have the right to suffrage, because of the color of their skin or other backgrounds.
And so I think that in North Carolina in particular, this is a very dark history. When I read that piece, which I did last night, I thought, you know, this reminds me of the various other mechanisms that Southern states and Jim Crow used to use to deny the right to vote to black Americans. So, poll taxes, literacy, taxes, having to answer, kind of, inane questions about the U.S. Constitution, if you're a black voter, but giving simpler answers or questions to white voters so you don't get to pick and choose in this country who gets the right to vote.
The core tenet of this democracy is that one man, one citizen, one vote. And Donald Trump is threatened by that. The Republicans are absolutely enabling that because they are afraid that they cannot win a fair election. And so we should not allow this to happen. We should talk openly about why this is happening.
