Brunswick County prepares for Election Day

October 28, 2022

Celeste Smith,

BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC (WWAY) – It’s been just over a week since early voting began in North Carolina. Brunswick County Board of Elections says voter turnout as been strong, and it is well prepared for the rush of voters on November 8.

According to the NC Board of Elections, as of Thursday, October 27, 925,076 voters have cast ballots in North Carolina through absentee and in-person early voting.

Locally in Brunswick County, Board of Elections Director Sarah LaVere said voter turnout has also been strong.

While some states are concerned about a possible ballot paper shortage caused by supply issues, North Carolina’s Board of Elections says it shouldn’t affect polling locations here.

“Turn out is good. We’ve got a new wait tracker this time, so we’ve been able to monitor how long people are having to wait in line. That’s been really neat, I think the voters are enjoying that. Turnout numbers so far, are pretty much on par percentage wise with where we were in the last midterm in 2018. So that’s good,” said Sara LaVere, Brunswick County Board of Elections director.

Lavere says the county printed more ballots the needed to cover all bases, and has extra ballot paper to print more, if needed.

She also says there are ballots available if people make errors when voting.

“Typically if somebody makes a mistake on their ballot while they’re in the polling place, they can alert a precinct official, and they can spoil that ballot. They can actually do that up to three times, they can get three new ballots to start again, if they make a mistake. We would spoil the ballot and give them a brand new one to mark, if by chance they made a stray mark on the ballot, and so they get to the voting machine and it says oh wait you’ve made too many selections in this contest, they have the choice then as well to get a new ballot,” said LaVere.

LaVere says Brunswick County has enough poll workers this election, and has many back-up workers prepared to be at the polls. Between 9 to 18 poll workers will work the polls at once.