RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina voters who want to skip Election Day lines have until 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 31, to cast a ballot at an early voting site, and they may use whichever early site is most convenient within their home county.
Early voting carries one perk Election Day does not. Eligible residents who are not yet registered can sign up and vote in the same visit during the early period, but that option disappears on Tuesday, Nov. 3. On Election Day itself, voters must go to the polling place tied to their registered home address, which the state voter search tool will look up.
Poll workers will ask every voter for a photo ID at check-in. Accepted cards range from a state driver’s license or state-issued ID to passports, military IDs and student IDs from colleges, plus several other types. Nobody is turned away for lacking one: a voter without an acceptable ID can still cast a ballot by completing an ID Exception Form.
Mailed absentee ballots must be returned by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day. The same voter search tool also shows each person a sample ballot.
At the top of the ticket is the open U.S. Senate seat, where Democrat Roy Cooper, who served as governor from 2017 to 2025, faces a Republican nominee who formerly chaired the Republican National Committee. Further down, voters choose local judges, district attorneys, sheriffs and school board members.
Three proposed changes to the state constitution also appear statewide, each with a for or against choice. One would extend the photo ID requirement to all voters, not only those voting in person. A second would cap the state income tax rate at 3.5%. The third would require limits on how much local governments can raise property taxes.
Voters who want to follow the numbers have a new option. Catawba College and UNC Charlotte have launched NCElectionsLive.com, a nonpartisan site built on public State Board of Elections files that compares this year’s early ballots with the 2022 and 2024 early voting periods and breaks them down by county. On election night it plans to pull official returns and add an estimated share of the total vote already tallied, labeled as an estimate. The site says it will never call races and is not affiliated with the state or county elections boards, parties or campaigns.
Money for the work came from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation along with private donations to a Catawba politics center. After Election Day, it will track the canvass and certification of results.
Section: More Asheville NC politics news
Filed under: Asheville NC Politics News
