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Most North Carolina voters likely have no idea who their county’s water and soil supervisors are — or what they do.
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But for voters in Western North Carolina’s Rutherford County, that could all change if High Priestex Mortellus is allowed to have their preferred name on the ballot this November.
Mortellus, who describes themselves as a “Gardnerian Wiccan clergy, necromancer, author, and public speaker” on their website, filed a formal petition with the North Carolina State Board of Elections after officials planned to include part of their legal name
The board will consider Mortellus’ petition at a meeting Thursday morning.
In the petition, Mortellus, who identifies as nonbinary, writes that their name is a religious mononym (a one-word name) which is intended to be written without a surname.
“My faith is part of this story because Mortellus is my religious name,” they said in a statement to The News & Observer. “It’s the name under which I was ordained, have served as clergy, written books, taught students, and worked in my community for years. Religious names are hardly unique to me — they’ve long been part of many religious traditions, from monks and nuns to popes, Sikhs, Muslims, and others whose faith shapes the names by which they’re known.”
In their petition, Mortellus writes that, after requesting to appear under the one-word name of “Mortellus” on the ballot, election officials advised them to change their name on their official voter registration. After doing so and paying the filing fee, they said they were informed that a last name would have to be included on the ballot. Officials later updated the candidate listing to “Mortellus Amorello” based on their legal last name.
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“Rather than reducing confusion, petitioner contends that requiring a name by which petitioner is not generally known is likely to create confusion among voters who know the candidate as ‘Mortellus,’ impair recognition of petitioner’s candidacy, and place petitioner at a disadvantage in communicating with the electorate,” the petition states.
The petition goes on to request that the elections board determine whether state law requires a surname for every candidate and whether religious names are a legally distinct category.
On their website, Mortellus says they are “clergy devoted to the dead” and that they “serve families through pastoral deathwork, funeral celebrancy, grief support and spiritual guidance.”
The website says Mortellus also holds a degree in funeral services but is not currently licensed as a funeral director or embalmer “due to systemic barriers within the licensure process that disproportionately impact marginalized individuals.”
Absentee ballots for the November midterms begin going out next month, meaning ballots must be finalized soon.
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