By By MIKE VOSS
Contributing Editor
One-stop, no-excuse voting begins across the state Thursday.
During the early voting period, voters in the municipal elections in Beaufort County may mark their ballots from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays at the Beaufort County Board of Elections at 1308 Highland Drive, Suite 104, in Washington (at the rear of the former Tideland Mental Health Center building). The office will be open for early voting from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Oct. 31, a Saturday and the last day for early voting.
The deadline to request an absentee ballot is 5 p.m. Oct. 27.
Don’t expect the turnout for early voting this year to be anywhere near the turnout during the early voting period last year, when a presidential election was held, said Kellie Harris Hopkins, elections director for Beaufort County, on Monday.
“It’s going to be lower than usual because we don’t have the usual amount of folks voting because all we have this year are municipal elections. It shouldn’t be too busy,” said Kellie Harris Hopkins, elections director for Beaufort County, on Monday.
In the 2008 general election, more than one-third of Beaufort County’s registered voters took advantage of one-stop, no-excuse voting to mark their ballots. At the end of the one-stop, no-excuse voting period last fall, 11,105 voters had market their ballots. At that time, there were 31,984 registered voters in the county.
As of Monday, there were 9,433 registered voters (combined) in the county’s seven municipalities, Hopkins said. Those voters make up less than one-third of the 31,173 registered voters in the county as of Saturday, according to the N.C. State Board of Elections’ Web site.
Some people who have not yet registered to vote may want to avail themselves of an opportunity first afforded to North Carolina voters two years ago.
Qualified residents may register to vote and mark ballots on the same day during the one-stop voting period.
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.
Voters in Aurora, Bath, Belhaven, Chocowinity, Pantego, Washington and Washington Park will elect mayors and/or council members (or commissioners).