Before 2013, North Carolina ballots always had Democratic nominees on the top line of the ballot. The law didn’t mention the Democratic Party by name, but it said among the parties with registration of at least 5% of the state total, those parties would be listed first, and in alphabetical order. Obviously, since “Democratic” comes before “Republican” in alphabetical order, the old law always had Democrats listed first.

In 2013 the Republicans had a majority in the legislature, and they changed that law to say that the top spot for each office should go to the nominee of the party that had won the most recent gubernatorial election. In 2012 Republicans had won the Governorship, so the new law meant Republicans would be listed first for all office.

Then, in 2016, Democrats recaptured the Governorship. So the Republican-majority legislature in 2018 changed the law again, to set up a completely equal method for all candidates to have a chance at the top spot. It said that a random drawing would be held to choose a letter of the alphabet. Candidates would be listed by surname alphabetical order, starting with that letter. Another random drawing would decide whether that year the state would use alphabetical order of candidate surnames for each office (starting with the chosen letter), or would use reverse alphabetical order. In 2018 this meant that the Green Party nominee for U.S. Senate was listed first. In 2020, the first presidential election under the new system, it happened that Donald Trump placed first, followed by Joe Biden, Don Blankenship (Constitution nominee), Howie Hawkins (Green nominee), and Jo Jorgensen (Libertarian nominee).

Now, in 2024, the random drawing selected the letter “D”, and the other drawing selected alphabetical order. So the order of candidates is: Kamala Harris, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Chase Oliver, Jill Stein, Randall Terry, Donald Trump, and Cornel West. This is the first presidential election in North Carolina in which one of the two major party candidates is not listed among the top two. Of course if Kennedy wins his lawsuit to get off the ballot, his name would be deleted and Oliver would be second.