By Staff
Will vote in the second primary at Chocowinity precinct
By MIKE VOSS
Contributing Editor
Voters eligible to mark ballots in Tuesday’s second primary and who live in Beaufort County’s Gilead precinct will have to vote at the polling place in Chocowinity.
The usual polling place for the Gilead precinct, Ephesus Free Will Baptist Church, will not be available. The church has decided its building will no longer be used as a polling place.
On Tuesday, poll workers at the Chocowinity precinct will have two sets of voter-registration books, one for the Chocowinity precinct and one for the Gilead precinct. Voters who reside in the Chocowinity precinct will insert their ballots into one tabulator. Voters who reside in the Gilead precinct will inset their ballots into another tabulator.
“It’s temporary — just for this election,” Anita Bullock Branch, deputy director of the Beaufort County Board of Elections, said Thursday.
Voters from the Gilead precinct who voted in the May 6 primary and who are eligible to vote in Tuesday’s second primary have been sent letters notifying them of the change, Branch said.
The board is seeking a new polling place for the Gilead precinct and hopes to have it in place by the Nov. 4 general election, Branch said.
Across the state Tuesday, a second primary is being held for the Democratic nomination for commissioner of labor. Mary Fant Donnan and John C. Brooks are seeking that nomination. Only unaffiliated voters who marked Democratic ballots in the May 6 primary and registered Democrats are eligible to vote in the second primary for the labor commissioner’s seat on the Council of State.
Early, one-stop voting in the second primaries began June 5. It ends at 1 p.m. Saturday.
Qualified residents may register to vote and mark ballots on the same day during the one-stop voting period. That procedure was used for the first time in North Carolina during the 2007 elections. Because that procedure is permitted only during the early-voting period, it cannot be used on Election Day, on the day of primary elections, before the one-stop voting period or the days between the end of the one-stop voting period and Election Day.
The Beaufort County Board of Elections’ office is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.
The Martin County Board of Elections’ office is open from 8 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.
The Washington County Board of Elections’ office is open from 8:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. until 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.
The Hyde County Board of Elections’ office in open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays from now until the second primary. Normally, it is open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.