North Carolina seeing strong voter turnout amid hurricane recovery

CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Saturday marked the first weekend of early voting in North Carolina.

Overall, the state had strong numbers for turnout earlier this week even as western North Carolina continues to recover from Hurricane Helene.

Some people plan to vote early.

There was no doubt StaCee Thomas was going to vote.

“I think this election is very important, it’s very historical,” said Thomas.

She just didn’t know it was going to be on Saturday.

“When I was driving by, I didn’t see many cars in the parking lot, so I said, ‘Let me try it!’ said Thomas.

She’s a little concerned that the Goodwill Opportunity Campus early voting site in west Charlotte was slow when she was there on Saturday.

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“I’m a little nervous because there’s not a lot of people in there, I was in and out no lines at all,” said Thomas.

But North Carolina topped its first-day early voting numbers on Thursday over 2020, and more people seem to be choosing early voting in the state.

“I was worried about the lines on Election Day, I wanted to vote stress-free, so I just decided to come out and vote,” said Patrick Gadala-Maria, who also voted Saturday.

65% of the votes cast in 2020 in North Carolina were from people who voted early.

Mecklenburg County had almost that exact same percentage turnout for early voters in 2020.

“It’s like field of dreams. If you build it they will come. If you make voting more accessible, people will turn out to vote,” said Dr. Susan Roberts, a political science professor at Davidson College.

Dr. Roberts calls the good statewide first-day early voting turnout a “healthy” sign and says she wouldn’t read much at all into lower first-day numbers compared with 2020 for some of the mountain counties because of Hurricane Helene.

“I was hesitant to write anything about early voting or voting sites in the mountains because I think people without running water, voting is not the first thing they think about it, let’s be frank,” said Dr. Roberts.

Dr. Roberts says when you get down to it, no matter when they vote and despite a hurricane’s unprecedented destruction weeks before the election, North Carolina is poised to show up at the polls.

“I think North Carolina voters know their votes matter, they know they’re under the microscope so to speak and that’s a good thing for participation in North Carolina,” said Dr. Roberts.

Early voting in South Carolina starts on Monday.

It runs through November 2 ^nd . That’s the same date when North Carolina’s early voting ends.

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