State board backs Sunday voting as Wake, other early voting plans approved
A lack of unanimous agreement in 15 counties, including Wake, Durham and Orange, prompts a lengthy meeting to set locations and times for early voting.
Posted — UpdatedThe county will also have 10 hours of Sunday voting at nine different sites after the State Board of Elections & Ethics Enforcement sided with local Democrats who pushed the more robust plan.
Sunday voting will be split over two weekends: Oct. 21 and Oct. 28. Saturday voting will run from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the three Saturdays before the election.
The state board met Sunday in Winston-Salem ahead of a statewide gathering of local and state election officials. It set early voting plans, nailing down locations and hours, for 15 counties around the state, including Wake, Durham and Orange counties.
WRAL News monitored the meeting by telephone, through a conference call set up by the state board.
Sunday voting repeatedly divided the board, with Democrats and the board's lone unaffiliated member, who was appointed by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, siding with plans that included Sunday voting over those that did not. In some cases, the state board went against plans with bipartisan support from local county boards in order to do so.
Three of four Durham County board members had supported this, but Chairman Luke Farley, a Republican, wanted to go with seven sites and no Sunday voting. Farley would have put the seventh site in southwest Durham County, according to meeting materials.
Orange County will have five sites and two Sundays of voting. Two other competing plans would have had five and four sites, respectively, with no Sunday voting.
"It's not just unacceptable, it's horrible," Eddie Woodhouse, a Republican member of the Wake County Board of Elections, said Sunday.
The university has committed to increased parking at the site compared with past elections, promising 36 spaces, plus room for staff. The university busing system also stops at the site and is free to students and non-students alike. A GoRaleigh bus also stops at the center, according to a university letter pitching the site.
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