Early in-person voting begins Thursday in North Carolina and runs until 3 p.m. on Nov. 5. One-stop voting sites around the state allow people to register and vote on the same day.
Midterm elections are big in North Carolina, when voters go to the polls for all 170 members of the General Assembly and the state's 14 members of the House of Representatives. There is also a tight race for an open seat in the U.S. Senate and a host of local and county elections.
Election Day is Nov. 8.
"We're expecting people to turn out. We are really hearing people are interested in voting in-person this year," Wake County Elections Director Gary Sims said Monday. He expects record turnout for the midterm election this year.
Each county has their own early voting sites. People can register and vote at any early voting site in their home county. The hours can vary by county, but most areas will have early morning, evening and weekend areas available for early voting.
The one-stop voting sites also give people the oppotunity to update their address when they go vote.
The one-stop voting sites will also allow people with absentee ballots to drop their ballots off with elections officials at the county sites. During the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, counties saw a massive spike in absentee ballots, also known as mail-in voting.
As of Monday, more than 180,000 people in North Carolina have requested mail-in ballots, according to the State Board of Elections. Almost half of those, more than 86,000, are from registered Democrats. More than 67,000 are from unafilliated voters and almost 28,000 from Republicans, according to the board.
"Mail-in voting really wasn't used a lot in the past," Sims said. "Obviously 2020, we're very glad people did get out and they did still vote. They way they did was absentee by mail," Sims said. "It's definitely higher than what we've seen in the past, definitely for midterm elections."
Mail-in ballots must be postmarked by 5 p.m. on Election Day.
