The end is near. The end of voting, I mean, and Wake County voters continue to show up at the 20 early-voting sites, 283,651 to date.
More women have voted than men, 140,821 to 113,948 with 28,713 labelled as “designated.” More Democrats have voted, 114,031, followed by unaffiliated voters at 95,861 and Republicans at 71,870.
The long lines have pretty much disappeared. A check with the Airtable Wednesday for wait times showed that almost all sites reported no wait time, four reported wait times of 5 to 10 minutes and only two, including the Northern Regional Center, reporting a wait of 10 to 30 minutes.
There are 790,722 registered voters in Wake County, and the number of unaffiliated voters, 305,763, has now eclipsed both the Democratic (290,058) and Republican (187,894) voters. The Libertarian party has 6,151 registered voters, the Green party has 409 and the Constitution has 447.
Just a reminder about the hours for early voting:
*Weekdays from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
*On the last day of early voting, Saturday, Oct. 31, sites will be open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
If you have an unreturned mail-in ballot that you requested, the delays observers have seen in mail delivery may make you decide to take advantage of early voting. Or you can fill out the ballot, have your witness print his name, print his address and then sign the envelope before you sign it AND then take it to a local early voting site. Currently if your mail-in ballot is postmarked before or on Election Day your ballot will be counted. Ballots will be counted as long as they are received by Nov. 12. But there is a Republican challenge to North Carolina counting ballots after Election Day and we do not know how the U.S. Supreme Court will rule.
Because of the pandemic, there are new safety procedures this year to make sure you, your fellow voters and the election officials are safe. Voters will be provided masks if they are not wearing one, hand sanitizer and single-use pens to mark their ballots. The election officials will wear proper personal protective equipment, they will sanitize surfaces between votes and ensure everyone is following the social distancing guidelines.
After the voter fills out his ballot, it is run through a tabulating machine that photographs the ballot and stores it in a bin. The tabulators are never connected to another machine or to the internet.
#
One Response
All voting should end NOVEMBER 3rd always. This is why our kids do not follow any rules, because they continuously witness adults changing the rules mid-way through any event, including sports games. It is rediculous! With early voting, mail in ballots, if you cannot vote by November 3rd than you are not taking any election seriously and you should not be voting. If one is serious about their right to vote they would make it a point to vote on time. Actually I do not believe in 2 week voting before November 3. Look how much has changed in this election in just the last week. Each candidate should have every available opportunity to express all past and new information as an election transparency. Late announcements, late in-priorities make a difference in choices to many, however voting early does not allow for a new point of view , a new perspective to imerge as to how one looks at each candidate through new eyes. Not only the filtering of new information is lost but also, it is not fair that we have to wait …..weeks to find out who our President is, as well as, the candidates are left lerking in the unknown. Our whole country is on the edge. In all fairness, to the people who voted late and all the people of this great country, all ballots must be counted! More waiting. It takes time to count ballets. All the ballots coming in. if actually counted, would take days! This is ludicrous.