By Josh Green, NBC17 Reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — Barbara Everitt spent the day making sure her team at the Board of Elections knew what the game plan was.

RALEIGH, N.C. – With the election now just 27 days away, time is quickly running out for you to register to vote.

That has area election boards working overtime to keep up.

Here are the fast facts:

The deadline to register is at the close of business this Friday.

Early voting for the election officially begins next Thursday, Oct. 16.

In Wake County alone, the Board of Elections has received 25,000 voter registration and change of address forms in the past week.

As the stacks of mail have piled up the last few days, crews have had to work to keep up.

“We’ve had to move up to the fourth floor just to have enough space in order to process all the mail,” said Deputy Director Gary Sims.

Workers are separating new voter registrations from change of address forms and absentee ballot requests, and trying to process it all as quickly as possible.

“We had kept pretty much up to date up until sometime towards the end of September,” said Director Cherie Poucher.

“We’ve got every desk full downstairs,” said Sims.  “And if anybody goes on break, or if somebody is off, or can’t work that day, we put another person in that seat.  So it’s an ongoing process.”

They’re so swamped by now that there’s a chance many people will not get their registration card back before Nov. 4.

Not to worry. 

“You do not need your vote card to vote,” said Poucher.

Polling stations will be ready for people who don’t have their cards yet, and have other ways to look up voters, such as driver’s license numbers.

“That’s almost instantaneous,” said Poucher.  “It goes from our computer to the state computer to DMV and comes back.”

At this rate, the total vote count should shatter previous numbers; both at the polls and in terms of absentee ballots.

“Seeing the pace we’re on for about 1,000 requests a day — and we have until Oct. 28 for an absentee request — that is also going to probably set an all time record,” said Poucher.

And elections workers wouldn’t have it any other way.

“To go through the work that we do and then see the high percentage of people that vote,” said Poucher.  “That puts a smile on all of our faces because that’s what democracy is about.”

NBC17 talked with representatives from both the Obama and McCain campaigns today; they said they were thrilled to hear about the big numbers, and credit the historic nature of this election.