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It's 5.05 and welcome in to a Tuesday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-993 WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you.
Well, today, November the 4th, is Election Day 2025 across many municipalities in North Carolina. According to the North Carolina State Board of Elections, more than 550 cities, towns, and villages, as well as townships and other types of municipalities, will host elections across the state of North Carolina today. This is what you need to know. Polling places open across the state at 6.30 this morning and close at 7.30 p.m.
So they'll be open for 13 hours today. And it is important to note that any voter in line at 7.30 will at their assigned voting location, as long as you're in line by 7.30, you can Still cast a ballot. Voters can check their voting location and view a sample ballot by visiting the NCSB, that's the North Carolina State Board of Election voter search tool. That will tell you where you need to vote on election day and give you a copy of your sample ballot so you can see who exactly is on there, what contests you will be voting for. Voters, as they have over the last couple of elections, will also be asked to show a photo ID when voting.
If for some reason you do not have an ID, you can fill out a voter photo ID exemption form.
However, you do have to sign an affidavit for that, indicating that you have a serious impairment as to why you do not have your valid ID and just leaving it at home or not having it with you would not fit that exemption form.
So if you are planning on voting today, which of course I would encourage you to do so, make sure you are bringing either a valid driver's license or another valid form of photo ID that is listed on the state board of elections. website as valid for the for voting and is valid for photo ID. If you did choose to vote by mail and requested an absentee ballot, that deadline was a couple of weeks ago, unlike in years past, your ballot must be received by your local board of election by 7.30 tonight.
So if you still have that absentee by mail ballot in your possession, the only way to make sure that it counts is to physically drop it off at your local board of election office today. If you put it in the mailbox today, it will not make it to your local board of election by 7.30 p.m. tonight. Therefore, it will not count. And finally, you do have to already be a registered voter to cast a ballot today.
Same-day registration, which is possible during the early voting period, which just played out for about the two weeks prior to today, allows individuals to do what is called a one-shot registration, where you register and vote in the same setting. That is not permitted on election day, so you already have to be a registered voter. One of the marquee contests across the state is in the city of Charlotte, where incumbent mayor Democrat Vi Lyles is seeking re-election. The Queen City has faced increasing concern and scrutiny over rising crime in recent months, especially after the city was thrust into the national spotlight by the murder of 23-year-old Irina Zaruska on its light rail system earlier this summer. Voters in Charlotte will also be asked about supporting a one-cent sales tax hike to fund a $25 billion light rail expansion.
And other transit projects across the area. That referendum will read as follows on the ballot for those in the city of Charlotte. 1% local tax and use tax, in addition to the current local sales and use tax, to be used only for roadway systems and public transportation systems. You have two options to vote for that: either for, meaning you are in support of the local 1% sales tax addition, or against. Many voters in Charlotte will see that on their ballot today as well.
Some voters may face additional questions from election officials if they're among the roughly 75,000 registered voters whose files are missing a driver's license number or the last four digits of their social security number. The North Carolina State Board of Election has been conducting an ongoing effort to update these incomplete records to ensure compliance with federal law. As we have talked about over the last couple of months, a federal lawsuit from the Department of Justice against more at the time more than 100,000 voters who were missing portions of either the full driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number in objection to HAVA the Help America Vote Act. That was a federal law passed by Congress back in the early 2000s. For the better part of a decade, a voter registration form here in the state of North Carolina did not make it abundantly clear that.
Voters were required to put either the full driver's license number or last four digits of their social security number. The DOJ did sue the state and the state board of election over some of those issues. That lawsuit is in the process of rolling down as both sides have agreed to remedy the situation, and the state board is doing that through the registration repair project that is ongoing right now.
So, for some voters today that are part of that list, the state board has created a flag to appear on these voters' records in either electronic or paper poll books, which will be used at voting sites. That will alert poll workers that these voters must vote provisional ballots and provide the missing information for their ballot to count. For most individuals, that will just be a full estate driver's license number, but you will have to vote provisionally if you have not gone through the process of checking your registration or responding to mail that you received from the state board of elections over the last year. The last couple of months. North Carolinians can search whether they are on that list or not via the registration repair search tool, which is provided by the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
That is available, excuse me, that is always available and updated daily over at their website, over at the State Board of Election website. And then finally, of course, what is going to happen with results?
Well, polls will close around or at 7:30 p.m. today. If there are still folks in line, they will be allowed to vote. But starting around 7:30, election officials in each county holding elections will begin the process of reporting some of those unofficial results for election day. The first set of numbers to be released will include approved absentee by mail and early voting totals, as early voting ended across the state in most places Saturday, just a couple of days ago.
Once those numbers are in, election day results will begin to trickle into the local board of election office, and they will be reported precinct by precinct until all voting locations have been accounted for by county officials. And as we have seen in years past, all of those results will be available on the election results dashboard that once again is provided by the state board of elections. That is all of these, all of the information that we're talking about. Talking about this morning, including valid forms of identification to search and see if you are a part of the registration repair project, to find your voting location, view a copy of your sample ballot, and then checking out those results. All of that is available this morning over at the State Board of Elections website.
That addresses ncsbe.gov. That's ncsbe.gov. And of course, you can also reach out to your local county board of election office if you have any additional issues or questions.
So that is what we are tracking for Election Day. More than 550 cities, towns, and villages will host elections tonight. We'll chat and get some more information about turnout numbers. Dr. Andy Jackson of the John Locke Foundation will join us coming up here in just a little bit on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
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Granger for the ones who get it done. It's 5:21. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 11:10-993. WBT, I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you.
It is election day across many municipalities in the state of North Carolina. As voters make their way out today, all the way up until 7:30 p.m. in most hit places across the state of North Carolina, voters could be running into some interesting things as it relates to the registration repair project. This is something that we've talked about over the last couple of months here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. It revolves a voter registration form that lasted for about 10 years, some ongoing legal challenges from the Department of Justice, and it's incredibly relevant to those voting in those elections today.
To walk us through some of those details, Teresa Opeka, CarolinaJournal.com, joins us on the news hour. Teresa, we've talked about this in the past. There was a couple of over 100,000 voters that had issues with their voter registration. They could see some different things if they're showing up to vote today. Yeah, good morning, Nick.
Thanks for having me.
So you mentioned about the registration repair list. They talked about it last week. There's just around 75,000 voters that are still on that list. That's down 27% from the initial 103,000 that that list was compiled of voters. What that is, is that they don't have a driver's license number or last four digits of their social security number on their voter registration.
So the Board of Elections first mailed out letters in August to those people, and they plan on sending a second mailing to voters who remain on that list shortly. Of course, being today's election day, you know, that's going to come after the fact. We had Executive Director Sam Hayes say last week at their meeting, there's about only three out of approximately 200 voters on the list had their votes not count in the September and October municipal elections. He says that shows that the vast majority were able to correct their registrations at their voting sites.
So that's some good news. And we're going to watch that process unfold today, Teresa. There might be somebody listening to our words this morning that shows up here to vote at some point throughout the day today to be told that they have to vote provisionally because of some of these issues. This all goes back to a faulty voter registration form that the state board had for a while, a lawsuit from the DOJ earlier this year. This is actually a federal issue, as I understand it, as it deals with the Help America Vote Act or HAVA, which is not new.
It was enshrined in federal law back in the early 2000s. Yes, that's correct. And in fact, um, a regular voter I call it regular voter. Carol Snow brought that up about a year, year, two years ago, that that was actually taking place.
Somebody noticed it on the form, and she's like, hey, you know, do you realize this is going on? And so she's the one that filed the complaint. And got the ball rolling with all of this. But you're right, the Hava Help America Vote Act, that's been around for a couple. Couple decades now.
So, yeah, that's how that registration repair list got its start.
So, they are making some really good headway in that. And for voters that do have that problem, they will likely vote a provisional ballot. They will have to provide, Teresa, as you just mentioned, either a full driver's license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number when they do show up to vote, if they do show up to vote in their municipal election.
So that list that you said is about 75,000. I would imagine that that number is probably going to be way down when we get a new report from the Board of Elections after Election Day today. I would imagine so. I think they're going to take care of a lot of that today and look forward to hearing the next report to see how much headway they made in doing that. Absolutely.
We'll keep an eye on that. We'll keep the attention on the North Carolina State Board of Elections. But, Teresa, we'll talk about one of our favorite topics: old antiquated technology systems that exist throughout state government. Unfortunately, this is an issue all around the United States.
However, the State Board of Elections, like many other agencies, they're looking at upgrading some of their technology assets as well. What did you learn at their meeting last week about that? Sure.
So, yeah, they did announce that they were modernizing their systems and software. In fact, again, Executive Director, Sam Hayes. He announced a joint initiative with state auditor Dave Bullock's office to solicit input for modernizing the state elections information management system and the campaign finance reporting software, both of which he said are quite outdated. More information on the projects can be found on a newly created website, which we have the link in our story. Vendors with expertise in those areas can submit bids on the project, and the public can also submit comments on the website.
County board members and directors across the state, as well as election integrity activists, are encouraged to share their thoughts and suggestions. I believe they're going to be maybe looking at procuring all of that before the end of the year.
So that's some good news as well. Yeah, we just talked about the DMV last week about how they've had decades-old software, maybe like almost like a DOS software or mainframe systems that need to be replaced.
So the Board of Elections is no different.
So they are looking to modernize as well. Yeah, and then Teresa, this is incredibly important, especially for entities and state government entities that interface with the public. Obviously, folks probably interface more with the DMV than they do the state board of elections, but many folks later on tonight will be heading over to the state board website and rapidly hitting the refresh button on their keyboard to see election results. You talk about that campaign finance software, which was written back in the Windows XP era, very old, very out of date. This is a big-time issue that folks are going to continue to deal with if they're in and around political elections.
Oh, yeah. And you've got both sides, I'm sure, they've got their watchdogs ready and waiting, you know, just to see how things are shaping up and, you know. To see if everything is being correctly done. I mean, it's, and it's rightly so, right? This is something that's extremely important.
We've been hearing about voter election results, what, 2020. But it all comes down to it is very important to have all these systems modernized because you definitely want to get the correct number of votes for each candidate. And yeah, I'm sure people will be hitting the refresh button many a time, and hopefully everything works out tonight. Teresa, you mentioned that we have a link to this new webpage that the State Board set up. Plus, you've got some additional quotes and pretty much a recap of the State Board of Elections meeting that took place on Friday.
Where can folks go and get those details this morning? Sure, they can head on over to CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate the information this morning. Teresa Opaca joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. And the headline of that story over at CarolinaJournal.com is NCSBE to upgrade software, cautions elections officials on social media use, all of that available over at our website, CarolinaJournal.com.
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News Talk 11:10-993 WBT. It is Election Day across more than 550 municipalities in the state of North Carolina. Voters will be making their ways to the polls all the way up until 7.30 this evening. That is when polls close across the state.
However, we've seen a concerning trend over the last couple of years, not just in North Carolina, but across the nation, of low turnout, very low turnout in municipal elections. To walk us through a little bit of that this morning, it's my pleasure to welcome Dr. Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation to the Carolina Journal News Hour. Andy, a lot of important decisions made locally, whether you live in a town or city, big or small across North Carolina, yet nobody turns out to vote. What gives?
Yeah, that's true. Cause you know, who's who's paving your street? Who's figuring out how to pay for your schools? That stuff. It's a lot of local stuff.
Well, municipal elections kind of have this on holy trinity of things that drive down turnout. One thing is they tend to, most of them are nonpartisan.
Some of the larger cities have partisan elections. They're off-year elections.
So there's nothing really like a big draw like president or senator or even Congress at the top of the ticket to pull people out. And a lot of these races, especially in the larger cities, are just not competitive. And so all three of those factors, probably not the least of which is the fact that you don't have like a big ticket race at the top of the ticket, all of those things drive down turnout. And that's what we're probably going to see later on today. Yeah, you talk about this this fact that many of these elections are nonpartisan.
Now, the candidates themselves, most of them are partisans. They are registered Republicans or registered Democrats. But unlike what folks saw in November of last year, Andy, if they're heading to a voting location later today and they're not familiar with who the candidates are and what parties they affiliate with, it's just a laundry list of candidates. No R's, no D's. That's got to be probably something that maybe causes people not to show up and turn out because they truly don't know who to vote for.
Yeah, that is discouraging.
Now, the parties do get involved in these races and they have their list and they'll try. You know, if they have enough volunteers, it's hard for them to get volunteers in these municipal elections. They'll be handing out these voter guides. I remember there, we had this kind of natural experiment in North Carolina where we had judicial electric appeals and Supreme Court, especially Supreme Court. They went from partisan to non-partisan and then back to partisan.
And we found out that voter turnout in those particular races, the drop-off from upper ticket races to those judicial races, dropped by 20% more. And so, not having that guide on the ballot of the D or the R really does depress turnout.
Well, Andy, I guess it shouldn't be surprising. Folks are busy. They're raising their families. They're working. They're hauling their kids around to sporting events.
I mean, everybody's busy with their lives. Most folks are not super tuned in to what's going on politically.
So I guess this notion of not being able to tell right away whether somebody is running as a Democrat or Republican probably discourages some of those individuals to show up because they maybe don't want to vote for the wrong person having not done some of that research. Yes, it certainly does. And that increases the power of the people who do show up and vote in those elections. And once again, those are really important elections for a lot of our everyday lives because You know, obviously, if fewer people vote, then each vote counts that much more. And so this is one of the reasons that you have some of these local politicians prefer to keep these elections into these off years, into these odd years where they don't have to face a wider swath of voters.
They can just deal with this. kind of small subset of people, perhaps more informed, perhaps more involved, but certainly less of a cross-section of the electorate that they have to deal with. And this is also one of the reasons if you can, you try to get spending measures decided at these local elections because you get less of an input from the wider citizenry. And Andy, when we talk about low percent, we're not talking about 30, 35, 40, 45% people turning out. We're talking about numbers in the teens.
Is that correct? Yeah, for example, statewide, if you look at all the municipal elections in North Carolina in 2023, it was only about 16% turnout when looking at all those municipal elections. And, you know, some places there might be more. If you had a town with an especially competitive election or some local issue that was really driving turnout in that town, you know, that might have driven up. But it's almost invariably going to be lower than what you would get in either a midterm election or especially a presidential election.
Because presidential election, we generally around 70%. Those midterm elections, the even year, but not presidential, that's up around 50%. But then you have this huge drop off of the municipals down into the teens. And is this an information issue? Is this people just being too busy in their day-to-day lives?
Is it maybe folks are more in tune with what's going on in the state capitol in Raleigh or up in Washington, D.C. and not following these local decisions? You track elections day in and day out. What do you think is really one of the main drivers with more folks not getting engaged in what's literally going on in their backyard? Yeah, I think it's a combination of those three things I talked about earlier.
And all of those things, the fact that there are a lot of them are not competitive. A lot of these municipal elections don't even have more than one candidate. Running in them, the fact that in many of them you don't have the parties involved, the fact that you don't have a big ticket item drawing people, you know, all of those things work in concert. It's just more difficult for people to really work out, figure out who they are interested in supporting and getting out and voting at that time. Plus, with the parties a little bit less involved than they are in these other elections, you know, the parties are really big drivers of turnout.
A lot of these nonpartisan groups are also big drivers. They get involved in knocking on doors and canvassing and whatnot. And so they're less involved in municipal elections.
So all of these things work together to make turnout lower. There's not really one magical thing we can do to increase municipal turnout other than moving them to even-year elections. Obviously, that's an interesting conversation that we can have in the future after things are said and done with election night tonight. Andy, what can folks expect as they are heading out to the polls? Those open at 6.30 this morning.
They run until 7.30 p.m. I will note that as long as you are in line by 7.30 p.m., you are able to cast your ballot and vote in your municipal election. Voter ID, a provisional ballot or absentee ballots are due. There's a lot of things that are going to be going on tonight. Yeah, well, first of all, you're not going to really expect much of a line.
So show up at 6:50. If you have to, show up earlier. It's always better because you never know about traffic patterns. You know, turnout is going to be low. We're fully expecting that.
So the reporting is going to be faster. Even though these are municipal elections, they're still run by the counties.
So they still have the same mechanisms.
So these are mechanisms that are set in place to handle millions and millions of votes statewide. And so that same mechanism is going to report these relatively small municipal elections.
So we should expect the results in all but the most or all but the closest races pretty soon in the evening. I think we'll know the results of almost every election before we go to bed tonight.
Well, and Andy, that's an interesting point you bring up, and you tend to see this more in the municipal elections. I think it's probably due in part to some of the incredibly low turnout.
Some of these elections, Andy, are literally decided by one, two, three votes. And that, of course, will kick off a multi-week process for all these local county board of elections over the next couple of weeks with getting all of the provisional ballots dealt with, any outstanding absentee by mail, of course, protests and things of that nature to decide some of these very important contests. Yeah, this happens. We have occasional ties. And so what you're going to see is this kind of scramble by the campaigns.
If we have a very close election and we have a handful of provisional ballots, the campaigns are going to go out. They're going to try to take their best guess about which of these provisionals are more likely to support their side or which had supported their side and contact that person, make sure they do what it takes for them to get that provisional bill. You know, ballot counted. You know, maybe they showed up and didn't have an ID.
Well, go get your ID. I'll give you a ride back to the Board of Elections office so that you can turn that in and make that ballot count. And they have until the day before the county canvas. The canvas is 10 days after Election Day.
So we're going to have nine days of really hardcore activity in some of these close races. And Andy, one of the things that we have talked about over the last couple of months and what could unfold for some voters across the state is having to bring that ID or provide additional information to the North or to their local Board of Elections through the State Board of Elections due to some of these ongoings with the registration repair project and making sure that voters have either the last four digits of a social security number or a driver's license number on record with the board of elections. Yeah, yes, that should be an easy fix. The driver's license, because that is by far the most common form of ID that people present.
So while you've got it out, if you're on this list of people that need to get their voter registration cured or fixed, they can provide that or provide the last four of their social. I'm not expecting that to be a major impediment from anybody voting. I know there's a lawsuit and the plaintiffs are claiming that it will be a major impediment. I don't expect so just because it's standard practice to bring that information in.
So, yeah, it could be a thing that comes up. I'm not expecting it to be a big deal. We appreciate the insight and information this morning. We will have continued coverage of the municipal elections across the state of North Carolina over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. Dr.
Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. It's 5:52. Good morning again. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour. Happy Election Day.
News Talk 11:10-99.3 WBT. Everything you need to know for Election Day today, November the 4th, as according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections, more than 550 cities, towns, and villages will host elections across North Carolina. Couple of quick points of information for folks voting statewide today. Polling places open at 6:30 this morning, and they will be open until 7:30 p.m. tonight.
It is important to note that any voter who is in line at 7:30 can still cast a ballot, but you do have to check in and you do have to be in line by 7:30 p.m. Voters can check their voting location and view a sample ballot and see if they have an election to vote on today by visiting. Visiting the North Carolina State Board of Election voter search tool. You punch in your legal first and last name, click on your voter registration, and it will tell you where your voting location or your precinct is where you will cast an election or where you will cast a ballot, I should say. And if you have a sample ballot available, then you have an election today.
If not, then you likely do not live in a municipality that is hosting elections today. Voters who do show up to vote will be asked to show a valid photo ID when voting. If voters cannot show an acceptable form of photo ID when voting in person, they could fill out a voter ID exemption form.
However, you do have to sign that an affidavit as to why you do not have a photo ID and just leaving your driver's license or your wallet at home is not a valid reason to fill out that exemption form. If you are somebody that votes by mail or absentee, your ballot must be received by the local Board of Election in your county by 7.30 p.m. on Election Day to be counted.
So if you still are holding on to that vote by mail or absentee ballot today. Your best bet is to drive to the local board of election office and drop that off and make sure that that is in the hands of election officials. If you throw it in the mailbox today and put up the flag, there is a very strong likelihood that it will not count. And unlike what you see during early voting, same day of voter registration or one-shot voter registration is not permitted on election day. The only individuals that are able to vote today are ones that are already registered and within the state board of election voter registration systems.
And for some voters, they may face some additional questions from election officials throughout the day today. If they are part of the roughly 75,000 individuals whose voter registration files are missing, either a driver's license number or the last four digits of a social security number. The North Carolina State Board of Elections earlier this summer announced that they would be conducting an ongoing effort to update these incomplete records and ensure compliance with federal law.
Some of the issues with voter registrations in the state of North Carolina did prompt a lawsuit from the federal DOJ earlier this year, making sure and trying to get North Carolina in compliance with the federal HAVA Help America Vote Act, which was passed by Congress in the early 2000s. The state board has created a flag system to appear on these voters' records in either electronic or paper poll books used at voting sites to alert poll workers that those votes, that those voters must vote a provisional ballot and provide the missing information for their ballot to count. North Carolinians can search whether they are on a list via the registration repair search tool, which is available on the state board of election website. And as we head into the evening hours, polls will close, as I mentioned, at 7:30 p.m. or around 7:30 p.m.
tonight. Election officials in each county holding elections will begin the process of reporting unofficial results. That data is transmitted from the local Board of Elections to the state. The first numbers released will include approved absentee-by-mail ballots and early voting totals from the lengthy early voting period that we have here in North Carolina. After that data and information is in, election day results will be reported precinct by precinct until all voting locations have been accounted for by county officials and all of those results.
Can be viewed publicly on the elections result dashboard, once again available by the for or by rather, I should say, the North Carolina State Board of Election. Everything that we've talked about this morning, including checking your voter registration, seeing whether you're on the registration repair list, election day results, your voting location, a sample ballot, all of that is available this morning on the State Board of Election website. That URL is ncsbe.gov. That's ncsbe.gov. We will, of course, keep an eye on those elections and have the latest coverage for you coming up tomorrow morning right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
That's going to do it for a Tuesday edition. Make sure you get out and vote for Election Day. We're back with you tomorrow morning, 5 to 6, right here on News Talk 1110 and 99.3 WBT.
