If you want to vote early, you only have two more days.
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3.
Early voting ends Saturday. If you are not yet registered to vote, you can still mark a ballot on early voting days, because staff will register you on site.
See the full list of area times and locations for early voting.
RALEIGH, N.C. — Early voting for the Tuesday, Oct. 6 elections begins Thursday for some area counties.
In Wake County, voters will be choosing for Board of Education Districts 1, 2, 7, and 9; Raleigh Municipal; and Cary Municipal elections.
In addition, any Wake County resident who did not register or update their voter registration information by the Sept. 11, 2009, voter registration deadline, may do so while voting early at either of the early voting sites listed below.
Wake Early Voting Locations and Hours
Wake County Board of Elections
337 S. Salisbury St., Raleigh
Thursday, Sept. 17-Friday, Oct. 2 Weekdays from 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 3 from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Herbert C. Young Community Center
101 Wilkinson Ave., Cary
Wednesday, September 30 – Friday, Oct. 2 from 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Saturday, October 3 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Chatham County voters who live in Cary can also participate in early voting starting Thursday:
Vote early at the Pittsboro One Stop site: The Pittsboro site will be open beginning on Sept. 17 and ending on October 3rd. The hours are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., and Thursday from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m. This site will also be open on Saturday, Oct. 3, from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m.
Vote early at the Cary One Stop site: The One Stop Site in Cary will be at the Herbert C. Young Community Center and will be open from 11 am until 7 pm on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, September 30th, Oct. 1, and Oct. 2 and will be open from 10 am until 1 p.m. on Oct. 3.
Vote on Election Day: The East Williams precinct polling place at New Hope Baptist Church, located at 581 New Hope Church Road in Apex will be open from 6:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 6.
Durham County Early-Voting information
Durham voters can vote early at the Durham Elections office 706 W. Corporation St, Durham between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays through Oct. 2.
In addition, they can vote at these times:
Saturday, Sept. 26 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday, Sept. 27 from noon to 3 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 03 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
RALEIGH, N.C. – Barack Obama’s effort to register tens of thousands of voters this summer was widely successful.
But the president-elect may not have won North Carolina without the help of a new law that allowed voters to both sign up and cast a ballot during state’s early voting period.
Obama became the first Democrat to win North Carolina in more than three decades. The unofficial margin without the tally of provisional ballot stands at 13,692 votes over Republican nominee John McCain.
Nearly 92,000 new voters registered during the early voting period, which opened after the traditional registration deadline for Election Day voting had passed. Democrats outregistered Republicans at the early voting sites by a margin of more than two-to-one.
DENVER – The drumbeat to vote early is paying dividends for Barack Obama, especially in key battleground states in the South and West where Democrats have cast many more ballots than Republicans.
About a third of the American electorate voted before Election Day, largely to avoid long lines at the polls.
Record early voting by Democrats in Florida, North Carolina, Iowa, Nevada and Colorado suggests the Obama campaign has rolled up an early advantage over John McCain.
More than 29 million people in 30 states have already voted. Democrats submitted 1 million more ballots than Republicans, though registration does not always indicate who voters choose for president.
Obama, who campaigned in Charlotte on Monday, had reason to expect early voting was breaking his way in North Carolina. Blacks made up 28 percent of that state’s early vote, though they are 21 percent of the population and accounted for just 19 percent of North Carolina’s overall 2004 vote.
WASHINGTON – Break out the popcorn. As the election results roll in tonight, we’re in for a captivating show on television. Here are five things to watch for as John McCain and Barack Obama duke it out for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.
Key Early States – Virtually all the battleground states this year were in the Republican column in 2004, underscoring McCain’s challenge. Virginia, where polls close at 7 p.m., will offer an early sign of the direction of the race, followed by Ohio and North Carolina at 7:30 p.m.
If McCain loses any of those states, which went for Bush in 2004, he will have a hard time winning.
At 8 p.m., polls close in Pennsylvania, the one blue state from 2004 both candidates hit Monday, the final, full day of campaigning. Though polls give Obama a significant advantage here, McCain is hoping to pull off an upset. If he doesn’t, it will signal real problems for McCain.
Other early, too-close-to-call states closing at 8 p.m. include Florida, the pivotal state from 2000 election, and Missouri, which has chosen the winner in every presidential race since 1956.
Long lines – An early indication of how long it will take to declare a winner tonight will be today’s lines at polling places.
Some watchdog groups warn that states aren’t prepared to handle a crush of new voters. The states say they are, but that voters can expect long lines as polls close.
Long lines could delay final tallies, particularly if turnout is high in Western battleground states like Colorado and New Mexico, where polls close at 9 p.m. and Nevada, where polls close at 10 p.m. (Times are Eastern.)
Black turnout – Pay close attention to turnout of African-American voters in key Southern states. A bigger-than-expected tide – sparked by Obama’s candidacy – could add electoral votes from Georgia, North Carolina and other states with large black populations to the Democrat’s tally. A smaller-than-expected turnout could keep those states in the Republican camp, as in 2004.
Beyond the presidential race, GOP operatives worry that a strong showing among black voters – who trend overwhelmingly Democratic – will swing down-ticket Senate and House races in the South, helping Democrats expand their majority in Congress.
Polls – National polls and surveys in key battleground states suggest Obama will win, likely by a big electoral vote margin. We’ll know tonight whether the pollsters deserve praise for their soothsaying skills or egg on their faces.
2008 has proved tougher than usual for pollsters. The expanded pool of voters, the wild card of Obama’s race and problems reaching younger voters on cell phones have made it difficult to determine exactly who will turn out and how they’ll vote.
Margin of victory – We should know the results by Wednesday morning. Whoever wins, conventional wisdom holds that a big victory equals a big mandate, making it easier to get things done.
While that’s not always the case, the new president’s effectiveness will be influenced by the results of congressional races throughout the country. Democrats are expected to pick up seats in both the House and the Senate. The question is how many.
Obama may find it easier to push his agenda through an expanded Democratic Congress, while McCain would likely be forced to make more concessions.
RALEIGH, N.C. — According to an update released by the Wake County Board of Elections, employees there have finished processing new or change address applications that were submitted by the Oct. 10 deadline. More than 40,000 applications have been processed since the beginning of October.
With those added, Wake County now has 584,978 registered voters – 248,731 registered with the Democratic Party; 182,705 registered with the Republican Party, 426 registered with the Libertarian Party and 153,115 registered as Unaffiliated.
The Elections Office has processed 22,484 civilian absentee ballot requests, 637 military and 1,079 overseas requests. They continue to receive more than 1,000 requests a day for absentee ballots by mail. The deadline to request an absentee ballot by mail is 5 p.m. on Oct. 28.
Ten early voting sites opened Oct. 23 and all sites will remain open until 1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 1. Information on early voting locations, dates and times can be found at www.wakevotesearly.com.
Voters can also check their voter registration information and print a copy of their sample ballot. As of the end of voting Oct. 23, 48,566 voters participated in early voting.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — To help shed light on early voting, Chancellor Holden Thorp and Student Body President J.J. Raynor will speak briefly to a gathering outside the early voting site at Morehead before going inside to cast their ballots Friday.
The pair will meet at 10 a.m. at the west entrance to the Morehead Building UNC-Chapel Hill campus.
Carolina first hosted early voting in the fall of 2000. Since then, the Morehead Building has served as a polling place each year except in 2007, when voting was moved to the Chapel Hill post office because of construction at the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center.
Early one-stop voting for the 2008 general election began Oct. 16, and Morehead has been the busiest one of the five sites in the county, according to the Orange County Board of Elections.
By the end of voting Tuesday (Oct. 21), 5,669 ballots had been cast at the Morehead site. In the 2004 general election, a total of 30,245 one-stop ballots were cast in the county, with the Morehead site leading the way with 12,939.
“Young Americans have typically voted at a lower rate than their elders, but among voters 18 to 29, college students tend to turn out at a greater rate than their age peers,” said Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Public Life at Carolina. “The 2008 presidential primaries produced a substantial increase in young voter turnout. A major elevation of turnout of young voters, with college students leading the way, would add to the historic nature of the 2008 presidential election.”
The schedule for the remainder of early one-stop voting at Morehead follows:
Any voter registered in Orange County may vote early at an early one-stop site. In North Carolina, a resident who is qualified to vote but who misses the 25-day deadline for voter registration may also register and vote on the same day at an approved site during the One-Stop Absentee Voting period, but not on an election day. The other four early voting sites in Orange County are the Orange County Public Library and the Northern Human Services Center, both in Hillsborough; the Robert and Pearl Seymour Center in Chapel Hill; and Carrboro Town Hall.
More early voting locations will be open Thursday.
Early voting began Oct. 16, but not all early voting sites were opened that day. If you have not registered to vote, you can register and vote in the same day during One-Stop Voting. If you are already registered, you can vote early at one of several locations in your county.
Voters have already turned out in droves at area locations. Wake County expanding its early voting locations Monday to ease long lines at voting sites. They opened four extra sites early to accommodate the crowds.
Some early voting numbers:
Durham – Turnout Tuesday was 5,299 for a total so far of 29,328
Cumberland – Turnout Tuesday was about 4,846 and overall about 23,518 people have voted.
Orange – Turnout Tuesday was 3,308 for an overall total of 15,652.
Early voting ends Nov. 1.
