VOTE

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The 2024 General Election is in a little more than two weeks.  As I may have mentioned in a previous post, I will be serving as Chief Judge at my local precinct.  Since this is a Presidential Election year, I expect that election day will be busy.  So busy in fact that I wouldn't have time to vote.  For this reason, I always take advantage of Early Voting, which started last Thursday in North Carolina.

Today, my wife and I got up at 7:00 a.m., which for me is a little late for a weekday, but a little early for weekend.  For my wife, this time is a little early on any day.  That said, we jumped in my truck and drive to the Early Voting site, arriving at about 7:45 a.m.  The line was reasonably short, perhaps 100 people ahead of us.  In previous elections, I've seen the same line be two or three times as long, taking three or four hours to get into the Voting Enclosure.  Today was nothing.

The polls opened this morning at 8:00 a.m.  When it did, the line moved forward 15 or 20 people, and the first members of the public were able to enter the building.  After this initial surge, the line advanced at a steady pace.  To pass the time, we chatted with other people in line.

By 8:30 a.m., we were able to enter the building.  We soon advanced to the Registration table, Photo ID's in hand.  After they confirmed our right to vote, we moved up to the Ballot table, where poll officials dug out the appropriate Ballots for our precinct.  Ballot in hand, we advanced to a voting booth, or in my wife's case, a table.  

The ballots in North Carolina use bubbles next to the candidates.  The voting booths had pens, which I used to fill in the bubbles.  This election, I had a two sided ballot.  Having researched the candidates up until last night, it only took me about 10 minutes to complete voting.  At that point, it was simply a matter of inserting the ballot in one of the two tabulators, and then I was done.  I accepted my Early Voting sticker, and stepped outside to wait for my wife.

Voting this way was fairly painless, and we followed it up with a stop for Breakfast at I-HOP.  

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