Elections board wants input on early voting schedule

Published 2:39 pm Thursday, December 24, 2015

Beaufort County Board of Elections
PREFERRED PLAN? The Beaufort County Board of Elections likely will choose this plan for early voting, according to Kellie Harris Hopkins, the county’s elections director. However, the board is seeking public input on three proposals before it decided which plan to use.

Early next year, the Beaufort County Board of Elections will select an early voting schedule for the March 15 primary. The board wants the public to provide input concerning that schedule.

Beginning 12 days before an election, all of the state’s 100 counties must open at least one location where eligible voters can vote early, according to Democracy North Carolina’s website (www.ncvoter.org). That process is also known as one-stop voting.

“We’re gong to ask for public comment up until our next meeting,” Kellie Harris Hopkins, Beaufort County’s elections director, said.

Public comment should be emailed to Beaufort.boe@co.beaufort.nc.us and will be considered at the board meeting to be held at 5 p.m. Jan. 5 at the board’s office, 1308 Highland Drive, Suite 104, Washington. For more information about this process, call 252-946-2321.

“We have to do a matching hour. We have to have a 113-hour match. We have three different set-ups. The board’s probably going to go with No. 3, but they want public comment on any of them,” she said.

The board will consider three options, according to Hopkins. Those options include the following:

• Option 1 (114 hours): normal office hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays, at the Board of Elections office and from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. the last Saturday off the early voting period; two satellite offices (Aurora and Belhaven) would be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. the Thursday and Friday and from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. the last Saturday of the early voting period.

• Option 2 (137 hours): normal office hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays, at the Board of Elections office and from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. the last Saturday of the early voting period; three satellite offices (Aurora, Belhaven and Chocowinity) would be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. the Thursday and Friday and from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. the last Saturday of the early voting period.

• Option 3 (150 hours): normal office hours, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays, at the Board of Elections office and from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. the last Saturday of the early voting period; three satellite offices (Aurora, Belhaven and Chocowinity) would be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. the Thursday and Friday and from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. the last Saturday of the early voting period.

Absentee voting by mail for statewide primaries begins Jan. 25. The deadline to register to vote in the March 15 statewide primaries is Feb. 19.

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.