Election-reform group warns of long lines on Election Day

By: JournalNow Staff | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 22, 2008

RALEIGH

Voter registration has grown by more than 250,000 people in North Carolina in 2008, an election-reform group said yesterday as it warned of long lines come Election Day unless early voting is expanded.

Democracy North Carolina estimated that between 700,000 and 1 million more people could cast ballots this Nov. 4 than the 3.5 million who voted in 2004.

Local boards of elections should add more early-voting sites and extend hours during the 2 1/2-week early-voting period that will begin Oct. 16, even to include Sunday afternoon, said Bob Hall, the group's executive director.

"You can look ahead and see this horrible traffic jam, but it can be prevented if election officials take steps to add more opportunities for voting before the Election Day crush," Hall said in a prepared statement.

More voters are expected because of a surge in registration and the excitement about the presidential race. Overall voter registration jumped by 257,394 from Jan. 5 through July 19 to 5,861,814, Hall said, citing State Board of Elections numbers.

Hall said that about 100,000 voters were added to the totals during April in advance of May 6, when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton faced off in North Carolina's first competitive presidential primary in 20 years.

Nearly 50,000 people used a 2007 law that allowed people to register to vote and cast a ballot on the same day during the early-voting period before the primary.

With same-day registration new to a general election, some counties already have planned for more and bigger early-voting sites. In Wake County, for example, the elections office will open 15 early-voting sites, three more than in 2004. Two of them will be in malls for the first time, Wake elections director Cherie Poucher said.

"We have no idea how that will impact," Poucher said in an interview. She expects that 200,000 county residents will vote early. "So we want to be prepared," she said.

The state budget signed by Gov. Mike Easley last week set aside $1 million for county grants to prepare for the turnout, bringing the total to more than $2.75 million, deputy state elections director Johnnie McLean said.

Hall's nonpartisan group already has been working with several eastern counties, urging election officials to open early-voting sites on at least one Sunday afternoon during the early-voting period. Several urban counties already provide extended weekend voting.

McLean said that the higher registration totals in North Carolina and voter turnouts in other states should cause county election workers to take a second look at their early-voting plans.

"I think they're going to want to rethink the number of sites and to remember that we do this to benefit the voters, not for the precinct workers or the one-stop absentee workers," McLean said.

Hall's analysis found that Democrats have added more than eight times as many voters this year as Republicans. The number of registered Republicans actually decreased overall in 16 counties, including Guilford, Orange and Buncombe, during the same period.

Early voting took off earlier this decade when state legislators removed the requirement that people give a reason why they couldn't vote on the day of the election.