Elections officials across North Carolina are preparing for the 17-day early voting period that starts Thursday, October 15.
Citizens are able to vote in-person at locations in their counties. Those who missed the regular voter registration deadline are able to register or update their registration and vote at the same time at early voting sites. Voters who use mail-in ballots may return them at early voting sites.
Early voting has consistently been the most popular way to cast ballots in North Carolina general elections since 2016, according to Catawba College political scientist Michael Bitzer.
Delivery and set up of tables and voting booths at early voting locations started last week, said Wake County Elections Director Olivia McCall. The state capitol city of Raleigh is located in Raleigh.
All counties across the state will have early voting sites, the North Carolina Mecklenburg County Board of Elections website confirms. Mecklenburg County will have 25.
McCall suggested voters check their sample ballots, which are available online at the NC Board of Elections voter lookup site, to familiarize themselves with contests and ballot questions. Voters may print out and bring in their sample ballots to the polls to use as a reference as they mark the real thing.
Early voting turnout ebbs and peaks during the 17 day early voting period. The busiest days tend to be toward the end of the early voting period, with the last day producing the longest lines. Early voting ends this year on October 31. Hours around lunch time also tend to be busy, McCall said.
On Election Day, voters must go to their assigned polling place. Same-day registration is not allowed on Election Day, and mail-in voters cannot hand-deliver their ballots to polling precincts on Election Day.
Setting early voting schedules came with some political turbulence this year, with Democrats and Republicans at both the state and county levels differing on locations and Sunday voting hours.
In Wake County, Democratic and Republican elections board members were initially divided over an early voting site at the Talley Student Union at the center of the main campus. Republican members pushed through their preferred alternative, a building at the edge of the main campus, the NC State University Western Boulevard Business Services building at 1220 Varsity Drive.
Both Mecklenburg and Wake will offer Sunday early voting hours, although that is not the case across the state, so be sure to check your area is eligible.
This article appears courtesy of our media partner NC Newsline via Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
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