About Elections

All election results in North Carolina from 9/10/2002 onwards are housed on the NCSBE’s Results Lookup Site. Results from the 11/2000 election are also on the NCSBE’s website in compressed raw text form, and other results back to 1991 are retrievable by the state or at each respective county office if you are looking for results from a specific county.

Results prior to 1991 have not been universally electronically compiled, therefore any results older than that will have to be requested from individual county offices to be examined in paper form. For more on conditions surrounding in-person examination of records, see FAQ question “If I cannot find the data I need, how can I request something directly?”.

Our website houses voter registration statistics and various other statistics by legal requirement in our raw statistics directory. The NC State Board of Elections also offers an unbelievably broad amount of data for the entire state as well as individual counties at its website.

The data offered at a state level is both in the form of graphs and highlights for your average curious citizen and in compressed raw text form for research purposes. We highly recommend visiting their results and data page if you are looking for comprehensive elections data.

Much of the records housed by an elections office are public record (see FAQ “What information will the Board of Elections office NOT provide me”). Information that is public record may be requested from an elections office with the following legal conditions:

1. Board of Elections offices are under no legal obligation to create or compile any records that do not already exist in complete form (N.C.G.S. 132-6.2(e)). Depending on the timing of a request, personnel availability, and what is being asked for, some offices may perform complex queries to get exactly what a public requester is looking for from a database. However, it is entirely up to the office whether or not they take any action to clean or narrow down raw data for a requester.
2. Board of Elections offices are required to allow examination in-person of public records “at reasonable times” or provide requested data that is public record “as promptly as possible”. The terms “reasonable” and “possible” are interpreted broadly, especially during the months immediately preceding and one month following an election. During the Election period, elections offices will usually not have the time and personnel available to provide large amounts of data by request, or to supervise in-person examination. If a request is substantial, please try to make it outside of the period directly surrounding an election.
3. Any in-person inspection of public record documents will likely be supervised by Board of Elections personnel, who have a right to “reasonable” supervision of document inspection, with “reasonable” once again broadly defined. In the case that the documents being examined are unredacted and contain information that is not public record, Board of Elections staff are legally required to supervise the inspection (such as in the case of absentee by mail ballot envelope inspection). This is to ensure that no memorandum is being made of any exposed information that is not public record such as voter signatures, absentee ballot ID numbers, etc.
4. Board of Elections offices are not required to respond to public records requests outside of regular business hours.

For legal references on items 2-4, consult Numbered Memo 2022-01.

No Board of Elections office will ever provide any of the following information except directly to an appointed Board of Elections or to a court by court order:

• Any protected elements of voter registration records (see FAQ question “What part of my voter registration is public record?”)
• Originals/copies of voted ballots or electronic/paper record of individual ballots (such as absentee ballot ID numbers)
• Records of absentee ballot requests received (only prior to Election Day, after Election Day these become public record, but must still have portions redacted in order to be copied)
• Any record displaying or revealing protected security features or access controls of voting systems, ancillary devices such as electronic pollbooks/Ballot On Demand printers, or state electronic resources such as the Statewide Elections Information Management System (SEIMS)
• Any completed or ongoing physical or cybersecurity vulnerability assessments
• Any file paths to network resources, system or computer names, or network information such as temporary/permanent IP Addresses, network port information, etc
• Any employee records aside from position/title, age at year end, and party affiliation
• Any records covered by attorney-client privilege or related to ongoing litigation
• Any information considered to be trade secret by vendors

For legal references on these items, please consult Numbered Memo 2022-01.

Early Voting hours are posted in a number of different places, once they have been decided (below list applies to Alamance County, but most county offices post hours in similar locations for their county):

• At the Main Elections Office
• In other county buildings such as the Main County Office Building, the County Annex Building, the courthouse, etc
• On the Board of Elections Website
• At Early Voting sites themselves

Outside of a mandatory period set by the state, individual county Boards have leeway to open Early Voting for additional time on weekends, and modify some hours as long as said modification does not result in a net loss of total open hours.

Each county Board of Elections sets their own Early Voting plan, and submits this plan to the State Board of Elections if the plan is unanimously approved. If a county cannot unanimously agree on a plan, the State Board of Elections steps in to help figure a plan out.

In Alamance County, there is little contention over Early Voting hours. Typically, our Board agrees on one or two additional weekend Early Voting days, a Saturday and/or a Sunday, and sometimes more for especially large volume elections.

Note that the last Saturday prior to an Election is always open for Early Voting until 3:00pm by law and is included as part of the standard required Early Voting period. Any other weekend days are in addition to that Saturday.

The number of early voting sites open during a particular Election is contingent upon volume expected in that Election, jurisdictions applicable, and specific site considerations. The decision of which sites to use each election is up to the Board of Elections, a decision which is typically made 3-5 months prior to an election.

Like hour decisions, this is part of an overall ‘Early Voting Plan’ that is submitted by each county to the State Board of Elections. For more detail on this, see FAQ question ‘Why are Early Voting hours sometimes different between elections?’.

In North Carolina, a voter may choose to both register and vote at the same time during Early Voting. Note that if you choose to register at Early Voting, you must vote immediately afterwards in order for your vote to be processed normally for that particular Election (i.e. if you register at Early Voting, then leave and try to vote on Election Day you will have to vote provisionally).

Also, someone who chooses to register and vote at Early Voting is subject to the same requirements anyone who applies for a brand new registration is, with the only major difference being an expedited time frame.

As of 2024, voters who provide a HAVA ID for the purposes of same-day registration that does not have an address matching that on the photo ID provided for voting will have to vote provisionally. For more details, visit the NCSBE Voter Identification page linked at the top of this page.

No, all Early Voting sites in Alamance County can be voted at by any resident of Alamance County who is eligible to vote. Residence in a particular precinct requiring a person to vote at that particular precinct’s polling place only applies on Election Day.

The following is a list of a North Carolina voter’s legal rights:

1. You have the right to cast your vote without having to take or pass any literacy test or meet any property requirements, monetary requirements, or requirements specific to your race, color, or language proficiency including any requirements designed to function as such (N.C. Const. Art. I, § 11, 10, 9; 15th and 24th Amendments to the U.S. Const.; Federal Voting Rights Act of 1965/73)
2. You have the right to cast your vote privately and independently (G.S. 163-165.1(e); G.S. 163-273(a); G.S. 163-271; federal Voting Rights Act of 1965/73)
3. You have the right to change or correct your ballot before it is cast* (08 NCAC 10B .0104(b); G.S. 163-166.7)
4. You have the right to vote if you are waiting in line at the moment the polls close (G.S. 163-166.01)
5. You have the right to vote a provisional ballot (or, situationally, a challenged ballot) if your eligibility to vote is in dispute (08 NCAC 10B .0103; G.S. 163, Art. 8; HAVA, 2002)
6. You have the right to request assistance with the voting process from a spouse, child, brother, sister, parent, grandparent, grandchild, mother-in-law, father-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, stepparent or stepchild (G.S. 163-166.8(a)(1))
7. You have the right to request (from poll workers) an explanation/demonstration of how to vote using any equipment, prior to voting using said equipment (08 NCAC 04 .0305(c)). Note that this right specifically covers the steps one takes to use the machines as a voter at the polling place, not any other aspect of machine functionality.
8. The following conditional rights also apply:
   • If you are unable to enter the polling place due to a disability, you may vote curbside from your vehicle (G.S. 163-166.9)
   • If you are unable to physically reach a voting booth without assistance or are unable to mark a ballot without assistance due to disability you may request assistance from anyone except for an employer or union representative (G.S. 163-166.8(a)(2))
   • Many other general accessibility related rights are applicable but not singularly related to voting (e.g. the right to reasonable wheelchair access to a building, handicapped parking spaces, etc), and are guaranteed by the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act (VAEHA) of 1984, the NVRA and HAVA as well as associated state legislation in N.C.G.S. 168A. See listed laws for details.

Note: To read listed legal references for these rights, consult online government sources for denoted sections of the N.C. Constitution, the U.S. Constitution, Federal Voting Rights/Disability Rights legislation, Chpt. 163 of the N.C. General Statutes, and Section 8 of N.C. Administrative Code.

In instances where a section is not denoted next to referenced law, the listed legal document is included as being core legislation from which other specifically denoted legislation is derived, or the right/rights listed are present in multiple pieces of legislation of which the ones not including specific section references are applicable to the listed right/rights in their entirety or in large enough part to be considered as such.

*The definition of ‘cast’ for a ballot can be found under the question “At what point in the voting process is my ballot considered ‘cast’?”

This depends on how long it has been since you originally registered and whether or not your registration fully validated.

Regardless of circumstances it is federal law that you can never be denied an opportunity to vote, but depending on what those circumstances are there may be extra steps involved in your voting process, or a provisional ballot may be required. To avoid any extra steps before voting or confusion, please keep your address up to date with your county Board of Elections office.

Yes, you may wear clothing supporting a candidate, party, or political position to vote. You may also have on your person materials given to you by electioneers outside the polling place or elsewhere by political volunteers.

What is prohibited for voters (and everyone else) is distributing the above materials inside the polling place, or engaging any voter in discussion that could be considered trying to sway their vote.

Pursuant to 08 NCAC 10B .0107(a), a voter may use electronic materials as reference while voting, but any communication with an outside party is considered to be ‘assistance’ with voting.

In practice, this means that it is permissible to be looking at your phone in the polling place, but if you are talking on it you will be asked to stop.

In North Carolina, there are no laws specifically governing the carrying of weapons at a polling place, however, applicable laws governing public/government and private property still apply.

If a polling place is public/government property, the most common example being a school, no weapons are allowed to be carried on premises by anyone save an on-duty law enforcement officer. If a polling place is private property, such as a church or a mall, the right to carry a firearm on said property rests on the decision of the property owner, and is contingent upon posted signage.

If a private property owner permits visitors to carry firearms, openly or otherwise, they may do so in a polling place if it is located at such a property. The reverse is also true; if a private property owner does not permit visitors to carry firearms openly or otherwise and has posted signage stating such, they are forbidden from doing so at a polling place that is located at such a property.

Before visiting any polling place with a firearm in North Carolina, ensure that it is private property and that the property owner permits the carrying of firearms within to avoid risking potential prosecution.

A ‘buffer zone’ is the location surrounding the entrance to a building containing a voting enclosure or the voting enclosure itself that is not the actual voting enclosure but is considered as such with respect to restrictions on electioneering and partisan behavior (N.C.G.S. 163-166.4). Within this zone, as in the voting enclosure itself, NC citizens are entitled to freedom from any influence on how they vote.

This zone extends from the entrance of a polling place a minimum of 25 up to 50 feet depending on specific site circumstances, measured roughly semi-circularly. It also extends six feet circularly around any curbside voter’s vehicle at a minimum, with more distance encouraged where available (Numbered Memo 2020-20 – Note other elements of this memo (specifically related to COVID-19) have since been superseded, but buffer zone guidance still applies).

It is also important to note that the smaller distance affixed to curbside voting guidance is intended to allow for situations where space is limited and/or a line for curbside voting is present, and these factors render it impossible to physically separate electioneers from curbside voters by a larger distance.

Distance guidelines for curbside voting apply to physical proximity, however, electioneers are forbidden from communicating with curbside voters who are actually in the process of voting regardless of distance. For example, shouting ‘Vote Blue” or “Vote Red” directly towards someone actively voting a curbside ballot from across the parking lot could easily be considered voter intimidation.

That depends entirely on whether or not you are willing to sign an affidavit stating that you are unable to enter the polling place due to physical disability.

Numbered Memo 2020-20 states “Any voter who votes curbside must sign the curbside affidavit.  A person is not eligible to vote curbside solely because they are the driver or passenger in a car with a voter who is eligible to vote curbside”. Note other elements of this memo (specifically those related to COVID-19) have since been superseded, but the above guidance is still current.

So, under current state guidance, curbside voting as it is defined in N.C.G.S. 163-166.9 is taken to be intended solely for those with an attested disability preventing them from accessing the polling place. The sole requirement for voting curbside is that that voter sign the affidavit stating they are unable to enter the polling place due to disability.

False attestation to the aforementioned affidavit is a Class I Felony (N.C.G.S. 163-275(4)).

A ‘sample ballot’ is a document containing all physical elements of a live ballot of a particular style, with a visual disclaimer stating that it is not intended for live voting (pursuant to N.C.G.S. 163-165.2(b)). Official disclaimers render a ballot unable to be read and clearly state that they are intended for educational purposes; as such, sample ballots are allowed to be copied and distributed (even by third parties) if they were originally from an official source.

Having in one’s possession a document that is, functionally or literally, a live ballot outside of a polling place absent permission for such as part of the fulfillment of a statutory obligation along with the presence of accompanying chain of custody procedures, is a crime (N.C.G.S. 163-273(a)(2); N.C.G.S. 163-275(9) (situationally)).

Sample ballots for each jurisdiction are usually available starting 60-90 days before an election, and are always available by 45 days prior to an election, unless the election in question is a second primary, special election, or municipal election following a primary the month before (in the last case, most of the municipal general ballot will be available prior to a municipal primary, excepting only the contest/contests involved in the primary, as it has not yet been determined who will be listed for those contests).

Regardless of time frame, once the sample ballots have been created and released, those applicable to each respective county will be available in most or all the following places:

• Posted at county Board of Elections offices
• Posted on county Board of Elections websites
• Available on your voter registration record page when you search your first and last name and registration status in the NCSBE’s Voter Search Tool
• Posted at Early Voting sites
• Posted at Election Day precincts
• Posted at other county facilities (varies)
• Present as paper copies provided by third parties (if they have been produced by third parties for voter outreach)

Contests’ ordering on a ballot is currently laid out according to legal guidelines contained in N.C.G.S. 163-165.6(b). Candidates within each contest are ordered either strictly alphabetically in the case of municipal elections, or chosen by random drawing at a State level between alphabetically and reverse-alphabetically for each election of other types.

Guidelines for referendum questions are listed in N.C.G.S. 163-165.6(a) and N.C.G.S. 163-165.6(h)

This occurs because of jurisdiction. ‘Jurisdiction’ is the term for a geographic area represented or served by an elected body or official.

For example, the entire state of North Carolina is the jurisdiction of the Governor of North Carolina, so everyone living in North Carolina can vote for Governor of North Carolina, but someone (permanently) living in Austin, Texas cannot send in (and will never be sent purposely to fill out) an Absentee by Mail ballot voting for Governor of North Carolina, because they do not live in North Carolina.

This same concept applies to smaller geographic areas. The most applicable examples in Alamance County are NC House District 63 and NC House District 64. Both of the offices attached to those jurisdictions are offices associated with the state of North Carolina, but neither of those offices represent the entire state of North Carolina.

The NC House is districted, meaning that each seat is filled by election in a small, non-overlapping geographic slice (district) of North Carolina, and the person elected to each seat is treated as representing their own particular slice of North Carolina in voting for statewide legislation.

So, when you go to vote in Alamance County on an even numbered year in a General Election, you will either see NC House District 64 OR NC House District 63, never both, on your ballot. This is because you do not live in the area represented by the seat corresponding to the contest you are not seeing.

Other Alamance County examples are all Municipal examples. For more information see FAQ questions “Why can I not vote in Burlington if my address is in Burlington, or I pay the city utility fees?” and “Why do I have to vote at a polling place in my county or send my ballot to my county’s elections office if the election I am voting in is based on cities (municipalities) and there is a closer polling place/elections office in another county?”

Currently, you can only manually vote straight party in North Carolina by selecting the same party for each contest on the ballot individually. There is no longer any singular option on paper ballots or accessible voting equipment (that prints paper ballots) in North Carolina such that one can vote for all candidates of a single party without voting each contest individually. See N.C.G.S. 163-165.6(f).

The party affiliation of candidates in contests on a ballot is contingent upon whether or not that contest is ‘partisan’. Offices that are considered ‘partisan’ have candidates’ party affiliation listed below their name. Contests that are considered ‘nonpartisan’ do NOT have candidate’s party affiliations listed below their name.

Whether a contest is considered partisan or not varies by associated jurisdiction. Explicit legal verbiage stating such for each individual contest is spread throughout Federal, State, and Local law. The short version is:

• Any contest on a primary ballot will not list any candidates’ party affiliations because the ballots are based on party (i.e. every candidate on a particular ballot is affiliated with the same party)
• Board of Education and Soil and Water District Supervisor contests are nonpartisan throughout North Carolina, including Alamance County
• Municipal contests can be either nonpartisan or partisan in North Carolina based on a municipality’s choice. Alamance County municipal contests are all nonpartisan.
• All other statewide NC contests are partisan
• All Federal contests are partisan

‘Assistance’, as the term is used when talking about voting a ballot, describes any action someone may take to help someone vote when present or communicating with a voter voting their ballot, up to and including filling out a ballot for a voter upon request with the voter present and determining the selections.

Note that at a polling place or One Stop Site, a person (other than a poll worker explaining how to vote) maintaining physical presence or being on the phone with a voter at a voting booth constitutes ‘assistance’, regardless of whether or not the person is actually acting to assist a voter, because it cannot be adequately determined that they are not.

Within the context of assisting a disabled voter, the assisting party may not seem to be suggesting any particular choice or seem to be attempting to sway the voter in any way (G.S. 163-166.8(c)). Behaving in such a manner while assisting a disabled voter opens one up to the potential of accusations of voter intimidation.

It is true that Boards of Elections and their associated staff are charged with determining individuals’ eligibility to vote based on United States and North Carolina elections law. However, arbitrarily determining an individual’s ability to understand the vote selections they are making based on situational evidence pertaining to their mental state is far outside the scope of all Boards of Elections and Election Officials’ decision-making responsibility.

In fact, it would be very unlikely for a Board of Elections to be placed in a position to consider such at all, as ‘voter is mentally incapable of making vote selections for themselves’ is not one of the legally defined reasons one can challenge a voter’s vote, nor is it one of the reasons upon which someone can legally base an election protest. As such, any challenge or protest brought on grounds of mental incompetency would have to be overruled by default, because there are no such grounds upon which to base a voter challenge or election protest.

That being said, if the issue arose from a provisional ballot cast, as it technically could due to HAVA requirements, the Board of Elections would only be able to consider one factor pursuant to N.C.G.S 122C-58 when determining the validity of said ballot; whether or not the individual in question’s legal right to vote has been precluded by unrevoked adjudication of incompetency.

An adjudication of incompetency must be petitioned for from the courts, and is granted or denied pursuant to definitions and guidance outlined in N.C.G.S. 35A. For more information, contact a legal representative or consult legal sources.

Yes, you may leave contests on your ballot blank if you do not wish to vote for any candidate in that contest with no tabulation machine warning messages, though there will be a legally required verification of what you are doing to make sure it wasn’t a mistake when generating a ballot on the ExpressVote. This is called an ‘undervote’, and does not render a ballot invalid.

You may also cast a completely blank ballot, but feeding a blank ballot into the DS200 Tabulator will currently require you to actually confirm through a subsequent screen that casting a blank ballot is in fact what you intended before the machine will accept it. If a voter chooses to cast a blank ballot, that ballot would simply register internally as having passed through the machine for the purpose of official counts. No votes would be recorded, because there would be no votes on the ballot.

These verification steps are to ensure that little reasonable legal argument can be made that someone misunderstood what they were doing when they cast a blank ballot or a ballot where some contests were not voted for or ONLY in the case of the ExpressVote, less than the number of allowed candidates was voted for, an undervote.

This is important because once a person casts their ballot into the DS200 Tabulator and it successfully passes through the scanner that is their vote. After that occurs, the ballot will not be retrieved and that individual will not be permitted to vote another (non-provisional) ballot.

A ballot is considered ‘cast’, after which it cannot be changed and a (non-provisional) replacement ballot cannot be issued:

• On Election Day and at Early Voting (in-person), the moment it successfully passes through the DS200 Scanner and into the bottom compartment
• For Absentee by Mail Ballots, after the ballot has been mailed or physically returned to a county elections office (N.C.G.S 163-233.1).

Note that in any situation outside of the norm, such as if it is claimed that a ballot was cast without a voter’s permission, legal procedure is to have that voter cast a provisional ballot. Such situations are the core purpose of provisional ballots. Once a ballot has been cast in an individual’s name they will not be permitted to cast another non-provisional ballot under any circumstances.

Voting for too many candidates in a contest is called an ‘overvote’. If you accidentally vote for too many candidates in a contest, the DS200 Tabulator will indicate this has occurred when you cast your paper ballot (on the ExpressVote ballot marking device, you will never generate an overvoted ballot because it does not let you select more than the allowed number of candidates).

When the DS200 Tabulator displays the overvoted ballot screen, you should let the Tabulator Assistant (the person watching the machine) know and they will explain your choices to you. You can either cast the ballot, which treats the overvoted contest as blank but counts all correctly voted contests, or you may ask that the ballot be returned. If you ask for the ballot to be returned, it is spoiled and you may vote a new ballot. See FAQ question “What does it mean to ‘spoil’ a ballot?” for more information on ballot spoiling.

Under state law (08 NCAC 10B .0104(B)), a voter may redo their ballot up to three times (for a total of four attempts at voting properly). Regardless of circumstances, a fourth attempt at casting a ballot is a voter’s final attempt at casting a ballot through the DS200 Tabulator. Any subsequent ballot voted after four attempts will be provisional.

Provisional voting currently results when a voter has shown up to an Early Voting site or an Election Day polling place to vote and for whatever reason their eligibility cannot be verified, they do not have a valid form of photo identification, or in any other circumstance where a voter insists upon voting a ballot but election officials are unable to legally tabulate it immediately.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) made it Federal law that any voter who is determined to be ineligible to vote normally at a polling place for any reason must be provided the opportunity to vote a provisional ballot if one is requested. The provisional process acts as a safeguard against polling place clerical errors or other erroneous circumstances related to verifying a voter’s eligibility resulting in a voter being disenfranchised by mistake. It also serves as assurance that election officials at each polling place are not deciding who can and cannot vote arbitrarily.

The provisional process, as it is in North Carolina (although procedures are fairly consistent across all 50 states with slightly differing situational use cases), involves a voter filling out a ballot and answering a precinct judge’s questions to provide information necessary for Board of Elections office staff to research the voter’s eligibility to vote.

Once the process is completed, the judge seals the ballot in an envelope and keeps it in a separate secure container designated as ‘provisional’. Provisional ballots are never tabulated at the time they are filled out, as this would defeat their purpose entirely.

Provisional ballots are returned to each County Board of Elections office on Election Night. Each corresponding voter’s situation is subsequently analyzed over the course of the following week (7 or 10 days) prior to County Canvass Day, the date upon which results are finalized at a county level.

Part of the information required of the voter during the provisional voting process is their contact information. During the provisional research process, a provisional voter may be contacted by the Board of Elections office in order to obtain more information if necessary.

On Canvass Day, research is presented to each respective county’s Board of Elections, identifying whether each ballot is or is not considered by the office staff to be valid with accompanying legal reasoning. After the final determination is made on any ballots for which a determination must be made by the Board, the valid ballots are tabulated using the DS850 Central Count Tabulator and added to final county election totals.

When a voter votes a provisional ballot, they are also given a set of instructions explaining how they may check to see if their ballot was accepted or not after it has been considered on Canvass Day. Elections personnel will not contact provisional voters with this information.

‘Spoiling’ a ballot refers to the legally defined procedure for invalidating a ballot for voting use. Some examples of situations where this is done are:

• When a ballot is damaged or otherwise unreadable by machine
• When a ballot is overvoted or mistakenly voted and spoiling is requested by a voter
• When a voter decides they actually do not want to vote after already marking a ballot, prior to the ballot’s tabulation

Spoiled ballots are marked ‘spoiled’ with a stamp and placed in a separate container from other ballots. These ballots are not discarded until well after the Election, because they are necessary for ballot reconciliation procedures (for example; checking to ensure that the number of ballots returning from a polling place to Board of Elections personnel is the same number that was issued to that polling place).

Legal References: N.C.G.S 163-166.7; 08 NCAC 10B .0104

The State Board of Elections offers a Voter Search Tool where any voter can be looked up by their birth date, full name, and registration status. This record is populated directly from SEIMS, North Carolina’s statewide voter registration system. After each Election, every voter that voted has their record in SEIMS updated to reflect them having voted. However, if you wish to check this information, wait until County Canvass Day, as the process for entering this information and ensuring its accuracy is time consuming and may not be complete until then.

That information is based on ATV (Authorization to Vote) forms at each precinct, which are a voter’s record of having voted. What a voter voted for is not included in this search, as revealing such is illegal, and is recorded by voting machine separate from the ATV forms.

For information on additional means with which provisional voters can confirm their ballot was counted, see FAQ question “What is provisional voting?”.

On Election Day in North Carolina, you must vote at the polling place corresponding to the precinct in which you live.

You may vote at any Early Voting site in your county during the Early Voting period, and may vote anywhere (given that you reside permanently in the county in which you intend to vote) utilizing Absentee by Mail as long as the ballot is returned to your county’s Board of Elections office.

This is because on Election Day in most NC counties each polling place only has the registration list for their attached precinct, which is how the system is intended to work legally. Early Voting sites are different because poll workers there have access to the entire county’s registration list. This is why anyone in the county can vote at any Early Voting site.

The State Board of Elections in North Carolina maintains a very useful online registration lookup site, the Voter Search Tool. Using this tool, you can search for yourself using your first and last name, birth date, and registration status. The resulting record, if it corresponds to you, will display your precinct and voting place (along with a lot of other useful information such as your sample ballot).

If you find you are incapable of using the Voter Search Tool (it conforms to ADA accessibility as well, so try it before you call, it really is useful and simple to use) we would be happy to look you up if you call our office at the number in our contact information at the bottom of each page on this site.

Currently in North Carolina, polls are open statewide from 6:30am to 7:30pm on Election Day. This does not change election to election and is strictly followed unless, for whatever reason, a polling place is delayed in opening or is prevented from operating during the day for a period of time. In the latter case, the State Board of Elections can authorize certain polling places in that county to remain open for a (typically as close as possible to) commensurate amount of time on Election Night.

Also note that if you are in line when poll closing time arrives, you will always be afforded an opportunity to vote.

‘Municipality’ is a blanket term for the smallest unit of corporate, partially self-governing geographic area in the United States. Common descriptive terms for municipalities can differ by region, general size, or arbitrary decision but the approved ones in North Carolina are ‘city’, ‘town’, and ‘village’. Elections at this level are officially called ‘municipal elections’, but can also commonly be referred to as ‘local’ elections.

Municipalities have the widest variation in how they conduct their elections across the United States. This is because they often have far less total population than larger self-governing areas and therefore can afford more experimentation and flexibility with how votes are collected, within the boundaries of state and federal law as well as the boundaries of what those administering said elections are capable of functionally and monetarily. In North Carolina, municipal elections are administered at a county level.

In Alamance County, there are currently ten municipalities: the Village of Alamance, the City of Burlington, the City of Graham, the City of Mebane, the Town of Elon, the Town of Gibsonville, the Town of Green Level, the Town of Haw River, the Town of Swepsonville, and the Town of Ossipee.

Unlike larger self-governing jurisdictions, there is no guarantee at this smallest level that every person actually lives in a municipality. Boundaries do not overlap, but they also do not cover the entirety of all counties. For example, only slightly over 50% of Alamance County’s registered voters actually live in a municipality. A good way to know municipal boundaries in this county is to visit Alamance County GIS’ Interactive Map. The colored areas on the map are the areas covered by municipalities. Any area outside those zones is not part of any municipality.

In order to vote in a municipal election you have to reside permanently within the bounds of one of these municipalities. There are a few confusing aspects to this involving cities listed in mailing addresses and bill payment; for more details see FAQ question “Why was I told I cannot vote in a Burlington Primary or Municipal Election if my address is in Burlington, and/or I pay city utilities?”.

Many municipalities cross county lines. In Alamance County, most of the municipalities of Burlington, Gibsonville, and Mebane are in Alamance County, but some of their municipal boundaries cross into Guilford or Orange counties, respectively.

Because the smallest level of election administration is the county level in North Carolina, municipal results are collected by county. How this came about historically is too convoluted to explain in detail here, but the short version is that because determination of eligibility to vote is acquired and verified through a registration system (originally paper and later electronic) based on precincts and divided by county, associated law has developed such that only the office of the county in which you live has the means with which to legally verify your residency and registration for the purpose of voting.

Hence, all voting related actions you take must be done with the office of the county you reside in, including casting a ballot, because a county you do not live in has no legal means with which to validate your eligibility to vote.

Eligibility to vote in a municipality is based on the incorporated boundaries of said municipality. Postal addresses are based on a separate system designed for mail delivery, not municipal boundaries, therefore you can have an address listed as being in a city without actually living in the municipality.

A postal address must include a city, despite not every residential address actually being a part of one. Hence, postal addresses retain their own geographic areas referred to as ‘cities’, that may or may not be actual municipalities, in order to ensure all addresses used for delivering mail have an associated ‘city’. These ‘cities’, even if they share a name with a municipality, are never fully congruous with municipal boundaries, and actually refer to the name of the post office to which mail destined for a particular postal address is associated with.

For example, most people living in the municipality of Swepsonville actually have a Graham, NC address, as the postal version of ‘Graham’ extends well into the Swepsonville municipality, and is served by the Graham Post Office. But if they were to vote in a municipal election, they would receive a Swepsonville ballot, not a Graham one, because they don’t actually live within the municipal boundaries of Graham, they live in Swepsonville, a separate municipality.

Often, people will tell you that the way to know if you actually live in a municipality or not is that if you pay taxes to the city, you live in the municipality, and if you don’t, then you don’t. What people fail to mention when using that explanation is that by ‘taxes’ they mean property taxes. Utilities, trash payments, and (in certain areas) certain types of purchases include taxes that are paid to a municipality, but are part of payments for services rendered by the municipality, not taxes in and of themselves. You may pay Burlington utilities because they are the closest source of water to your residence, but not actually live in the Burlington municipality.

When mentioning voting and property taxes, it is important to note that requiring someone to own property to vote in any election is illegal and unconstitutional at a Federal and State level. Paying property taxes to a city is just an indication that you do in fact live within the boundaries of the city, not a requirement for voting in a municipality. It is also possible to live in an apartment or rental property within the boundaries of Burlington, and you can vote if that is the case for you, but in that case you wouldn’t be paying property taxes.

Ultimately residential eligibility for voting in a municipal election all comes down to your permanent residence’s actual geographic location, which is determined through GIS mapping. If a Board of Elections office tells you that you cannot vote in a municipality, they are getting that information directly from a precise electronic map.

As always, if you believe there has been a mistake and you do in fact live in a municipality, you are welcome to vote a provisional ballot.

A Primary Election is, in layman’s terms, an election held to narrow the number of candidates running for each office down to only one per open seat per party (or a similar explicitly defined limit for nonpartisan contests, in the case that such a limit exists).

For example, if twelve people file to run for US Senate in North Carolina, not all twelve will make it on the ballot for the General Election. Instead, to cut down on the sheer number of choices on each ballot in the General Election, Primary Elections are held as preliminary ‘rounds’ to decide who gets to be each party’s chosen candidate (or candidates) for a contest (or just to narrow the field to a limit in the case of nonpartisan contests).

Since a contest being included in a primary election is contingent upon there being more than one candidate for one party (or more than a limit of candidates in a nonpartisan contest), it is rare that all contests that will be on the ballot in a November General Election are on all primary ballots. Each party’s ballot in a primary may not have the same contests on it either, for the same reason.

North Carolina primaries are closed, meaning that only people affiliated with a particular party or Unaffiliated voters that have chosen for the duration of a single primary period to vote a single party’s ballot can vote their party’s (or for Unaffiliated voters, chosen party’s) ballot. For more on Unaffiliated voters and primaries, see FAQ questions “I am registered Unaffiliated. May I vote in a primary election?” and “Why would I be unable to vote in certain contests in a primary or in certain primaries as an Unaffiliated voter if I am entitled to vote any party’s ballot for that particular primary?”

Also, uncommonly, a single primary will fail to narrow the field in a contest or a handful of contests to the required number of candidates because the margin of votes between candidates is too close to definitively declare them a particular party’s candidate (or, in contests with multiple seats, the cutoff margin of votes is too close). In this case, a second Primary is held, featuring just those contests.

Yes, in North Carolina, Unaffiliated voters may vote in a Primary Election, subject to the following conditions:

• An Unaffiliated voter must choose which party’s ballot they will vote in a Primary Election. Once the chosen ballot is cast they cannot vote another party’s ballot in addition to the first one, or invalidate the first ballot in order to vote another party’s ballot.
• If an Unaffiliated voter chose to vote a particular party’s ballot in a Primary Election, there is a Second Primary Election in which they are also eligible to vote in, and they choose to vote in said Second Primary Election, they must vote that same party’s ballot in that Election. This also means that if a Second Primary Election occurs just for contests of one party and an Unaffiliated voter has already chosen to vote the opposite party’s ballot, they may NOT vote in that Second Primary.
• Unaffiliated voters may also choose to vote a ballot containing only nonpartisan items, if they are included on a primary ballot. Note that this also will lock them out of voting any particular party’s ballot in any Second Primary, but will still allow them to vote a nonpartisan ballot in the rare (currently impossible in Alamance County) event that there is a Second Primary for nonpartisan offices.
• Conversely, if an unaffiliated voter did NOT vote in the original Primary Election, they may choose to vote a ballot in a Second Primary of any party affiliation.

Whatever choice an Unaffiliated voter makes for the duration of all Primaries does not apply in associated General or Municipal General Elections, as which ballot a voter gets in those elections is not based on party, but on jurisdiction. For more information on jurisdictional nuances related to Unaffiliated voters voting in a Primary or Second Primary, see FAQ question “Why would I be unable to vote in certain contests in a primary or in certain primaries as an Unaffiliated voter if I am entitled to vote any party’s ballot in a primary?”.

A registration of Unaffiliated does NOT entitle a voter to vote in a primary or for a contest in a primary that only corresponds to a particular jurisdiction that that voter is not a part of.

Jurisdiction and party requirements for voting in particular contests during Primary Elections are completely separate. If someone who is registered Unaffiliated wishes to vote in a primary on a particular party’s ballot they will receive a ballot containing only that party’s primary contests for the jurisdictions applicable to them.

For example, if three Republican candidates file for NC House District 64 and six file for US Senate in an election, both will be on a Republican primary ballot. However, an Unaffiliated voter living in NC House District 63 who chooses to vote a Republican ballot will receive a ballot that does NOT contain the NC House District 64 contest, because they do not live there. The ballot they receive would be the same ballot someone who was a registered Republican who lives in NC House District 63 would receive.

If someone who is registered Unaffiliated wishes to vote in a primary but there are no contests for their jurisdiction on any party’s ballot or on a nonpartisan ballot, they cannot vote in that primary. For example, an Unaffiliated voter living outside of Burlington city limits would be unable to vote in the Burlington Primary for either party or in nonpartisan contests, because they do not live in Burlington.

This also applies to second primaries. For example, say an Unaffiliated voter living in NC House District 64 voted a Democratic ballot in a Primary Election in which both NC House District 63 and NC House District 64 were on the Democratic primary ballot, receiving a ballot with NC House District 64 included. If a Second Primary is called and the only contest on the Democratic Second Primary ballot is the NC House District 63 contest, they cannot vote in that second primary, because there are no Democratic contests in which they are eligible to vote.

Yes, all party changes prior to a primary election must be made by the voter registration deadline for that Primary Election.

In is important to note that unlike failing to register prior to the voter registration deadline, if you are already registered prior to a primary and you fail to change your party affiliation prior to the voter registration deadline you will NOT be able to change your party affiliation at Early Voting prior to a primary in order to vote in the primary with the new affiliation.

Across the U.S., there are dozens of laws in each state governing the minutiae of requesting, filling out, signing, returning, cancelling, and tabulating an Absentee by Mail ballot. The systems vary widely, from universal mail-in voting where every registered voter is automatically sent a ballot in the mail each Election and only very limited options for voting in person exist at all, to states which still limit all Absentee by Mail voting solely to those with a disability and impose as many restrictions on its use for that purpose as courts will allow under Federal law.

Due to Absentee by Mail voting and its details being a heavily argued partisan issue, many nuances exist aside from the two mentioned above, including whether or not a near relative can return a ballot for you, identification/citizenship requirement differences between mail voting and in person voting, the presence or absence of ballot drop boxes, etc.

For more on the specifics of our system, explore the rest of the FAQ questions in this section.

In North Carolina, each Absentee by Mail ballot must be requested separately for each individual Election (N.C.G.S. 163-230.2(a)(7)). The only exceptions to this are:

• UOCAVA Military and Overseas ballots, a request for one of which can be denoted as a request for a UOCAVA ballot for every election in a particular calendar year
• Someone with a disability who has attested to an illness or disability that will likely prevent them from voting in person for the next calendar year can request to receive an Absentee by Mail ballot for every election in a particular calendar year (N.C.G.S. 163-226 (b))
• Someone who has requested an Absentee by Mail ballot for a Primary (of a particular type, if the person in question is registered Unaffiliated) may choose to automatically receive an Absentee by Mail ballot for any associated Second Primary, if such a Primary occurs and they are eligible to vote in it (N.C.G.S. 163-227.1)

For more on UOCAVA ballots, see FAQ question “What is a UOCAVA or Military and Overseas ballot?”.

Neither requesting nor receiving an Absentee by Mail ballot bar an individual from later changing their mind and choosing to vote in-person at an Early Voting site or on Election Day instead. However, returning an Absentee by Mail ballot does bar an individual from doing so.

Furthermore, if someone returns an Absentee by Mail ballot then proceeds to vote in person at an Early Voting site or on Election Day as well, they will be risking charges of double voting. As it is explicitly stated in law that Absentee by Mail ballots, once returned, cannot be cancelled (N.C.G.S 163-233.1), a good case can be made that a voter who goes to vote in person after returning an Absentee by Mail ballot would be expecting that both ballots will be counted and as such is attempting to vote multiple times in a single Election.

NC County Boards of Elections never send out Absentee Ballot Request Forms to voters unless a voter has specifically requested one. If you have received such a form in the mail unsolicited, but do not intend to vote Absentee by Mail, you may ignore it without being penalized in any way. Absentee Ballot Request Forms are, by law (N.C.G.S. 163-230.2), provided for free by the State Board of Elections. As such, third party groups often distribute them through mailings.

If you do wish to vote Absentee by Mail, feel free to request a ballot using the form a third party sent you, as long as it is the correct one, which can be found on the NCSBE’s website (link is to the landing page for Voting by Mail, as request form layouts change regularly).

A mistake on an absentee ballot itself, such as filling out bubbles improperly or voting for too many candidates in a contest will not be detected until the ballot is tabulated, because Absentee by Mail ballot return envelopes remain unopened and sealed until tabulation. Depending on when the ballot is returned and the volume of Absentee by Mail ballots received in a particular election, this can happen in a meeting prior to an election, on Election Day, or after Election Day.

Regardless of when the ballot is run, the voter corresponding to that ballot will be unlikely to be present. Rather than individually contacting each voter to redo their ballot (which is not permitted for mistakes on a ballot itself), what happens in this case is the following:

1. The DS850 Central Count Tabulator cannot read a ballot.
2. If it is determined there is a deficiency with the ballot or it will not read after multiple attempts, it is brought to the Board of Elections for analysis.
3. At this point the situation branches:
   1. If the ballot is determined to have a contest or contests in which the voter voted for too many candidates and it cannot be reasonably determined which of the chosen candidates is the one they would have preferred to vote for, the ballot is run again under different settings in order to count the contests that are properly voted and cancel those that are not.
   2. If the ballot is determined to have a contest or contests in which the voter voted for too many candidates and it CAN be reasonably determined which of the chosen candidates is the one they would have preferred to vote for (i.e. they voted for four Board of Education members but crossed one bubble out), the ballot is duplicated with the voter’s correctly deduced intent and the duplicated ballot is cast as their ballot.
   3. If the ballot is determined to have a deficiency resulting from misprinting or damage such that the machine will never be able to properly determine votes from it, but the voter’s intent can still be determined, the ballot is duplicated according to voter intent and the duplicated ballot is cast as their ballot.

The above process applies specifically to Alamance County, but can be generalized to any other county in North Carolina depending on type of central count tabulator is used and the sheer volume of ballots. For more details on what ballot duplication is, see FAQ question “What is ballot duplication?”.

Once an Absentee by Mail ballot has been mailed to the Board of Elections, unless the voter has marked that they would like the enclosed ballot to be spoiled and a new one to be issued on the absentee return envelope, it is considered cast, and as such cannot be cancelled (N.C.G.S 163-233.1).

An individual can request an Absentee by Mail ballot for someone else only under the following circumstances:

1. The requesting individual is a near relative (spouse, brother, sister, parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, mother-in-law, father-in-law, daughter-in-law, son-in-law, stepparent or stepchild; see N.C.G.S 163-226(f)) or legal guardian of the person for whom the ballot is intended
2. The individual requesting the ballot is doing so for someone with a disability, is not the disabled individual’s employer or union representative, and fills out requisite sections of the request form related to assisting a disabled voter (see Numbered Memo 2022-11).

Ballot duplication is the structured process of officially recreating the ballot of a voter who is not present during ballot tabulation. This is done when a ballot has either been damaged and therefore cannot be run through one of the machines, or is in danger of being partially uncounted because of a mistake said voter made on the ballot that can be easily corrected.

Note that ‘duplicating’ a ballot is only done by a bipartisan team (one Democrat and one Republican) during an open Board of Elections Absentee meeting. Ballot duplication is never performed at polling places, Early Voting sites, or anywhere else absent a quorum of actual appointed Board of Elections members. Ballot duplication occurs according to the following procedure:

1. One of the two individuals involved takes the original ballot stamped ‘Original’, the other takes a blank ballot stamped ‘Duplicate Ballot’
2. The individual with the original ballot reads the voter’s selections from that ballot out loud, contest by contest
3. The individual with the blank ballot records what the other individual reads aloud, contest by contest
4. When the duplicate ballot is complete, the individuals swap ballots and ensure that the correct votes were read or recorded, respectively, by the other. If this process is done by a bipartisan team that does not consist of two Board of Elections members, two Board of Elections members of opposite parties also verify that the correct selections were made.

A UOCAVA ballot is also sometimes called a Military and Overseas ballot. ‘UOCAVA’ stands for the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. This act, originally passed at a Federal level in 1986 and modified in 2010, lays out methods by which United States military personnel on active duty and private citizens overseas for an extended period of time can vote in Federal contests.

Much like other major Federal voting legislation, it later became applicable through individual state laws to state and local contests as well.

The specifics of this act are numerous, but some notable examples of what it allows for military and overseas voters are:

• Transmission of ballots by email or fax
• Acceptance of ballots received after Election Day but before Canvass Day with no requirement for attestation to or proof of the presence of extenuating circumstances
• Early mailing of ballots, when requested and available
• Requesting of ballots for all elections in the current year with a single request, sent separately and when available
• Waiving of any requirement to reject ballots due to any circumstance outside of essential missing information required to identify where the ballot came from (i.e. small procedural mistakes are allowed in the process that are not allowed for domestic Absentee by Mail voters but the ballot in question still must be able to be associated with a registered voter)
• The ability to vote a ballot containing only Federal contests, issued by the Federal Government and returned to the county Board of Elections of the individual’s last lived at domestic address

More state specifics for these ballots may be read in Article 21A of N.C.G.S Chapter 163.

Beginning in the early 2000s, North Carolina established their Statewide Election Information Management System (SEIMS). SEIMS evolved gradually, and today is the core of how North Carolina elections administrators execute elections, house and maintain registration data, and perform other legally defined duties.

SEIMS is the combination of our statewide voter registration data and the applications necessary to work with it. The database contains the registration records and all associated data (such as voter history) for the entire state. Each individual county has access to their own little corner of the database, corresponding to the registered voters in their county, and is responsible for maintaining the accuracy of the data within that corner at an administrative (not technical) level.

Similar systems exist in all 50 states.

You may look yourself up using your first and last name/birth date as well as your registration status on the NCSBE’s Voter Search Tool in order to check many of your registration details. If you cannot find yourself, or have other questions about your registration, please call our office at the number listed in our contact information.

Voter registration forms can be acquired directly from the Board of Elections office, at Early Voting sites, at Election Day polling places, at the DMV, at libraries, at High Schools, and more.

Forms filled out on paper can be turned in at the Board of Elections office. The DMV can initiate registrations and send them directly to us, and registrations can be completed through the DMV online as well!

If you are looking for voter registration forms for distribution as a political or nonprofit effort, you will need to get these forms directly from our office in person.

You can change your address or other information on your registration by filling out the requisite section on your voter registration card and returning it to our office, coming to do so in person at our office, or at the DMV on any number of forms.

You may also make changes at Election Day polling places and Early Voting sites under specific circumstances, but it is always better to make changes to your registration record by the voter registration deadline 25 days prior to an election.

The key element to a registration change is the voter’s signature. Regardless of what change is being initiated and the format in which it was initiated, the change must be accompanied by a signature.

Mistaken removals and other more complicated problems with registrations should be handled directly with the Board of Elections office. If you are unable to denote a change on any forms available at the places listed above, come to our office directly.

Every part of a voter’s registration information (herein, ‘voter’ refers to ‘registered person’, not necessarily ‘person who voted’) is public record except for the following:

• A voter’s date of birth (generally interpreted as covering birth dates to month or day specificity; birth year is not provided directly but age at year end may be)
• A voter’s partial or full social security number
• A voter’s drivers’ license number
• A voter’s email address
• The location a voter originally registered, or the means by which they registered (i.e. online or in-person, DMV or library, etc)
• Copies of any other identification documents provided during registration or voting, including photocopies of provided photo identification for Absentee by Mail voting
• Retrievable ballot ID numbers for Early Voting and Absentee by Mail ballots corresponding to voters
• The addresses of ‘confidential’ voters (a protection extended only by court order)
• A voter’s signature

Legal references: N.C.G.S. 163-82.10, N.C.G.S. 163-165.1, 18 USC 2721

In North Carolina, the voter registration deadline for an Election is always 25 calendar days prior to Election Day for that particular Election.

If you miss the voter registration deadline for an Election, you may register at Early Voting if you bring along a HAVA ID and Photo ID. If the addresses do not match on these two forms of identification, the ballot will be voted provisionally. Also note that if you register at Early Voting, you must vote in that election immediately at that Early Voting site. You cannot register at Early Voting then leave and vote in that election on Election Day, or vote through Absentee by Mail.

For specifics regarding HAVA IDs, see FAQ question ‘What is a HAVA ID?’.

The two terms are often used interchangeably at a local level to refer to voters, candidates, or elected officials. However, the correct term for a voter who is not registered as a member of a particular party is ‘Unaffiliated’ in North Carolina.

The term ‘Independent’, in the context of United States elections, is most commonly used to refer to an already elected legislator affiliated with a party, but who is known for often voting across party lines (i.e. instead of their votes being dependent on what their party as a whole decides to vote as a bloc for, they make their own decision on each individual issue). Some states do officially list candidates as ‘Independent’, but not North Carolina.

The term ‘removed’ does not mean that a voter and all their information is simply deleted from the registration database. ‘Removed’ in the context of voter registration means that their status in the database is changed to ‘Removed’.

This moves their information to a separate grouping of ‘removed’ voters (retained for ten years), purging some information permanently but retaining detailed information regarding reasoning and circumstances for removal.

Voters in this separate grouping cannot vote without fully registering again. An Absentee by Mail ballot request cannot be processed for a removed voter, a removed voter showing up at Early Voting can only vote by fully reregistering and voting right then with proper identification information (and matching addresses on both photo and HAVA ID, or the vote will be provisional), and a removed voter presenting to vote on Election Day would not be on their precinct’s registration list at all.

Yes, you may request your own removal from the registration database by filling out a Registration Cancellation Form, which can be accessed at the attached link, on the NCSBE’s website, or filled out in person at your county Board of Elections office.

This form, once filled out, must be returned to your county Board of Elections office by the voter who it corresponds to in person. This form must always be accompanied by a signature.

Deceased registrants can be removed from the voter registration database only if it has been confirmed through legal means that the voter is deceased. This is to ensure that no one acts to remove someone from active or inactive registration, by design or by accident, who is actually still alive. From a legal perspective it is considered a far graver error for a voter to be accidentally disenfranchised because it was believed they were dead than it is for that voter to remain on the rolls until it can be properly confirmed they are dead.

The primary legally defined way in which a deceased voter can be removed is by their name appearing on a list of everyone who died in the state of North Carolina sent monthly from the State DHHS (Department of Health and Human Services) to the State Board of Elections. When the State Board of Elections receives this list, they run it against the statewide voter registration database and send each individual county matches of registrants who have died. Each individual county confirms that the names sent are in fact those of the people in their individual databases (which are subsets of the statewide registration database, for more information see FAQ question “What exactly is the ‘voter registration database’?) then removes them themselves. There is also a county level version of this list sent directly from DHHS to each county which is compared against the state one to improve matching at a state level, as well as a ‘DHHS search’ which allows counties to search death records going back years to continually verify as few as possible are missed.

The DHHS list is the most definitive means of confirming a voter is in fact dead, but sometimes the names that show up on those lists only show up months after they died, depending on the exact circumstances and location of death (for example, someone who died outside the state or during travel abroad unbeknownst to family/friends).

Faster removals are permitted for individual counties using lists of deceased people in the county from the local Register of Deeds. This is not required by law, but most counties do leverage this, including Alamance County. It is also worth noting that this method only covers county residents who died within their home county. As a result, county offices communicate between themselves to notify each other early of deaths of residents outside of their home county when time permits.

The final official way of receiving death notice is when a near relative or primary estate representative (for definition of ‘near relative’ see FAQ question “What are my explicitly defined legal rights as a voter?”) fills out and returns a Notification of Deceased Voter Form. Any near relative or primary estate representative can also accomplish the same purpose by filling out ‘voter is deceased’ information on a NCOA mailing (for more information on official mailings, see FAQ question “I received a card from my county Board of Elections, what is it and why was it sent to me?”).

Some counties also look through local obituaries for registered voters, but that method cannot be legally used alone for removing someone from the voter registration database. Obituaries are not subject to any official, statewide, and consistent form of accuracy verification and contain limited information on the deceased, therefore they cannot serve as official notice of death. Obituaries only serve as a starting point to provide a list of people who could be dead prior to receiving official confirmation.

Edge cases, such as deaths outside the state (or outside of the United States altogether), can lead to delays between the actual date a person died and their removal from the database, but every legal effort is made in North Carolina to remove deceased voters from the voter rolls.

Federal legislation, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), required states to implement their own policy, following certain general guidelines, for the removal of voters who do not vote for a certain period of time and do not respond to any attempts at contact from a County Board of Elections office.

In answer to this requirement North Carolina enacted the following, pursuant to N.C.G.S 163-82.14: Twice per year, a voter who has not made or responded to any contact with a County Board of Elections office or voted in two federal election cycles (four years) will be sent a mailed document intended for return asking them to confirm that they still live at the location they are listed as living in state registration records. This document is mailed to the address listed under their name in the state registration system, and if no response is received in 30 days, they are moved to a status of ‘inactive’.

Inactive voters are still registered voters. If they present to vote in an election while they are still inactive, they must verbally verify that they still live at the address on file or update their address at the polling place, then they are allowed to vote. However, if another four years from the first mailing passes (counted once again by federal election cycles) without any contact or voting on the part of the voter, a total of eight years since last contact or vote, the person is removed from the voter rolls, and they must re-register in order to vote.

We send out mailings to registered voters according to the following situations (aside from Absentee by Mail voting correspondence, which is always by request):

1. We send out regular list maintenance cards after every even year congressional Election to any voter on the registration lists who has not voted, made any contact with us, or answered any of our mailings in two congressional elections (four years) in order to confirm these voters still live at the address they are registered. If you receive one of these cards, mail it back to us denoting that you still reside at the address to which it was sent. For more information on this, see FAQ question “Under what circumstance are voters who are NOT deceased removed from the voter registration database?”.
2. We also send out National Change of Address mailings twice a year, in January and July. These mailings are sent to a list of voters whose names and form of identification on file match a list from the Postal Service of those who have applied for a mailing address change in the prior six months. If you receive one of these cards, mail it back to us confirming that you now live at the address you applied to change your mailing address to, or stating that you were just changing your mailing address, and would like your residential address to remain the same.
3. The third type of mailing we send is mailings directly related to registration action taken. These either are a verification of the address given when a person originally registers, or a confirmation sent after a change of address. If you receive one of these cards, mail it back to us confirming that you do live at the address with which you registered. If you do not, you will have to verify your address when you go to vote.
4. The fourth type of mailing we send is voter registration cards themselves. Once we confirm that someone does in fact live at their address, we send them their registration card. While it is not required to bring them to vote, these cards are a convenient and official way to make registration changes by filling them out and mailing them back to us when a change needs to be made.
5. The last type of mailing we send out is notices. These will always be on Alamance County Board of Elections official letterhead, and can be notice of many different situations. Most commonly, these are notices regarding missing or invalid registration information. If you receive a notice printed on Alamance County Board of Elections letterhead, read the notice and act accordingly.

Note, if you receive any mailing that was not intended for you (i.e. it has someone else’s name on it), follow the instructions on our website page regarding mailings. That page also contains information for explaining what we do and do not send voters in the mail, so it is also the page to visit for information if you received something you believe came from us that is not listed above.

No, you may not. There is way for a registrant to arbitrarily declare themselves exempt from public records laws. Only individuals who have been given a court order mandating that their address be protected information are given ‘confidential’ voter status (N.C.G.S. 163-82.10(e); derived from N.C.G.S. Chpt. 15C).

No, DMV form registration-related sections and questions are always optional. Leaving them blank or ignoring them will never affect your registration in any way, and you will never be required to register to vote if you are not in order to complete any DMV form.

You may get a replacement voter registration card by calling and requesting one be mailed to your address currently on file with us or coming in person to the office. If you choose to come into the office you will need to provide a HAVA document with your current address or a photo ID in order to receive the replacement card in person.

If you have moved, you will need to fill out a form to update your address and the card will be sent to you in the mail.

A ‘voting system’ is a set of machines, procedures, materials, etc that collectively encompass a complete means with which to record votes and tally results for an election.

Alamance County uses a custom build of ES&S Voting System 5.2.4.0, the second-most current North Carolina certified system from election machine vendor Election Systems & Software.

It is worth noting that the general version 5.2.4.0 of this system, as defined on ES&S’ website and publicly available documentation, encompasses more devices than are actually certified for use in North Carolina, and more than are used in Alamance County. Which specific devices from this system are certified in North Carolina can be found on the State Board of Elections’ website.

Alamance County uses a setup consisting of DS200 Precinct Tabulators for tabulating precinct and Early Voting results, the DS850 Central Count Tabulator for tabulating Absentee by Mail and Provisional results, and the ExpressVote Ballot Marking Device for ballot generation during Early Voting as well as an ADA-compliant ballot generation option on Election Day.

Results are only tabulated and generated by the two tabulators. The ExpressVote is a ballot marking device, which takes a blank card and prints a voter’s selections on it to be fed into a tabulator, and does not record any results. Results are retrieved from each tabulation device on Election Night and aggregated to generate results totals, which are then sent to the state to be displayed publicly.

If by ‘counted by hand’ one refers to a process wherein a ballot is visually examined by a human being, the votes seen are recorded on paper or manually typed into computer, and those votes are added to the official totals without ever running through a tabulation machine, the answer is no.

All ballots, even Absentee by Mail and Provisional ballots (that are valid), are eventually run through a machine. The results that are read from machines are the only results. If a ballot never passes through a machine (specifically a tabulator, not the ExpressVote Ballot Marking Device), the votes on that ballot are not part of the results.

This is why provisional ballots that are determined to be valid are run through a machine rather than just being tallied up, and why damaged ballots returned through Absentee by Mail are duplicated rather than tallied up (for more on ballot duplication, see FAQ question “What is ballot duplication?”).

Machines are tested for functional mistakes prior to an Election and are incapable of deciding, of their own accord, to modify vote totals for malicious purposes, whereas a human being can never offer the guarantee of both. Therefore, aside from write-in votes (which still must be registered by a machine as being a write-in vote), any manual human recording of final aggregated results is forbidden in most modern voting systems unless a configuration mistake or other human error has to be corrected.

This is the same reason why much of commercial airliner flight is through autopilot. Only a handful of major air disasters have ever been tenuously connected to software malfunction, whereas tens of thousands have resulted from human error. In flight as well as in vote tabulation, it makes the most statistical and practical sense to cut as much potential for human error out of standard procedure as possible.

The ExpressVote Ballot Marking Device serves as an ADA accessible option for visually impaired voters, or any voters with a disability that can lead to difficulties filling out a ballot with a pen and paper, on Election Day. At Early Voting sites, the ExpressVote is used for all voters.

The process for using the ExpressVote is as follows:

1. A voter feeds a blank sheet of ballot paper into the ExpressVote
2. The voter makes contest selections on the ExpressVote’s touch screen
3. After the voter has made all their desired selections, they signal the machine to print their ballot
4. The ExpressVote creates a ballot for them, already filled with their selections
5. The voter then moves to the DS200 Tabulator, and runs their ballot through that machine to cast their vote

DS200 Tabulators tabulate the majority of votes in Alamance County. A DS200 Tabulator takes into its scanner either a full-face paper ballot or an ExpressVote paper ballot, reads it, and depending on what is on the ballot it either counts it and drops it into its attached bin, or denotes any mistakes on the ballot and either offers the opportunity to get the ballot back in order to correct any correctable mistakes, or simply spits the ballot back out if the mistake cannot be corrected.

There is always one DS200 Tabulator at each physical location in Alamance County individuals go to vote on Election Day and at each Early Voting site. Any ballot not passed into the DS200 Tabulator that is not a provisional ballot or absentee by mail ballot will never be a part of the results, so it is important to never leave a polling place with your ballot. Leaving a polling place with your ballot is also illegal (N.C.G.S 163-273(a)(2)).

The DS850 Central Count Tabulator is a high-speed tabulator housed at secure Board of Elections central locations. This machine is used to tabulate all absentee by mail ballots and any provisional ballots that are accepted after Election Day. The DS850 is always used for live voting in the presence of a quorum of Board of Elections members.

With this machine, ballots are stacked on a feed tray to be run, then run at high speed and deposited into trays based on ballot disposition. Results from this machine are also read in to be aggregated with other results on Election Night.

To read more about how ballots are handled during this process, see FAQ questions “What happens if I make a mistake on my absentee ballot itself?” and “Can voting machines correctly detect write-in votes? If so, how do the machines count these votes?”

A totals tape is a results tape from a tabulation machine printed after a tabulator is done being used for live voting (i.e. when the polls are closed). This tape has the results from that particular machine printed on it.

Zero tapes are totals tapes printed prior to machine use for live voting where all totals are intended to evaluate to zero. Before any instance of a tabulator being used for live voting in North Carolina, it is legally required to print the results on the machine, which should be all zero, signaling that the machine is cleared of any results (08 NCAC 04 .0304(a)).

The latter is important for verifying that there were no votes on the machine prior to it being used for voting, and the former is important for comparison against totals collected on Election Night in the central system as well as a comparison of total number of ballots recorded by the machine to counts of ATV forms and voted ballots at the precinct. These comparisons weave a complicated web of verification that would make faking reported machine results wildly difficult.

North Carolina voting machines can detect the presence of a write-in vote using the bubble next to the line where the name is written in. However, they cannot and do not attempt to read those write-in votes.

Handwriting translation software and systems have gotten much better since their inception but are still far from accurate enough to be used to correctly deduce voter intent from someone’s handwriting. As such, when a write-in occurs on a ballot, the machine just counts it internally as a generic write-in without attempting to read what name is written in.

After the election, the write-in votes are tallied the only way they can be, by hand. An image of each write-in vote can be saved, and can be printed from the machine as well at poll close, which is two ways those votes are collected for hand tally (specific method used is a county to county choice).

Note that tallied write-in results must still match the total number of machine recorded write-in votes in order for the process to be complete; i.e. if the machines recorded 346 write-in votes in an election and those tallying votes by hand came up with 300 votes for Jeffrey Higgenbothum and 48 for Jennifer Jospeth it would have to be determined why there were two more votes tallied than were recorded as existing.

Only write-in votes for candidates who have qualified as such through petition are added to said candidate’s totals by default. Write-ins of people who are not a qualified write-in candidate are simply denoted as being for an unqualified candidate in records and not counted for anyone.

One exception to the above is in nonpartisan contests and municipal contests. In those contests, if write-ins are permitted, all written-in names are tallied and treated as actual contenders in the contest, however, only write-in candidates that reach a certain threshold of votes (that varies based on a number of factors) are actually included in the final results.

There are plenty of opportunities for the public to engage with this process in each county, from attending L&A Testing prior to an election and attending public Board of Elections meetings to opening a dialogue directly with local elections offices.

Elections administration is a deceptively complicated field procedurally, one that is poorly understood by the general population. We always welcome questions regarding the process through telephone/in person during business hours (Mon. to Fri. 8am-5pm) and by email. For our contact information, scroll to the bottom of any page on this website.

In between elections in Alamance County, voting machines are under multiple levels of redundant security measures preventing physical access to their storage locations, including video surveillance.

Regular yearly maintenance is performed by vendors to verify that machines are functioning properly (mechanically and technically), and prior to each Election county Elections staff performs Logic and Accuracy (L&A) testing on all machines to be used for live voting to test the machines logically.

During L&A testing, test decks fitting certain specifications are run through all machines to be used for live voting, and ballot marking devices are verified to contain and print all necessary selections. Results are then printed from the tabulators and read in for aggregation just like in a real election.

Results from the printed tapes are compared to totals read in for aggregation, which are both compared to the totals that the test decks were created to add up to. If the totals match across all three places, the machines are certified to be used in the upcoming Election.

The communication between the counties and state is also tested during an event called the ‘Mock Election’, where L&A test results are sent to a state level just like on Election Night. This also provides the final piece of true ‘End to End’ logic and accuracy testing.

The above means that once the Mock Election is complete, the results are ensured to have been correctly read by machines, printed on tapes, loaded into the central system for aggregation, and reported to the state. This process in its entirety is identical to live voting results collection, and offers more than reasonable assurance of accuracy.

Once all but the Mock Election has been completed and the machines are certified, they are all sealed with tamper-proof seals until the moment they are used for live voting. These seals are designed such that they cannot be removed without damaging them, and are placed on machines such that it is impossible to access the machine without damaging the seals.

If there is later a discrepancy with the results the state displays during the Mock Election not matching those that were on the test decks, the tapes, and the results aggregation software, the origin of the discrepancy is rooted out, the offending machines are decertified and the process is repeated for their replacements until all results match ‘End to End’. Any machines certified in place of those that were decertified are sealed just like the others after any discrepancies are corrected.

These seals remain during transport to the devices’ individual polling locations, with the addition of other physical security measures and separate chain of custody practices for transportation personnel, when said personnel differ from those primarily responsible for the machines’ security.

On Election Day or on the first day of One Stop Early Voting, these seals are all checked by on-site staff (Judges on Election Day or Site Coordinators for One Stop Early Voting). Any seal difference or absence that cannot be explained results in a machine being subbed out for a tested and certified backup machine out of an abundance of caution.

During live voting, if machines at polling places and One Stop sites have been determined to be secure (i.e. the seals are determined to be those that were attached when the machines were transported), these machines have all sensitive areas secured with more tamper-proof seals during the actual voting process. Any seal attached is recorded, and any seal removed is checked.

One Stop Early Voting machines remain at their site throughout the duration of One Stop Early Voting, and are sealed and locked into their site each night until voting resumes the next day. Each morning, seals from the night before are checked, and any unexplained absence or difference results in machine replacement.

Locks on the room containing voting equipment are changed prior to One Stop Early Voting. No one has access to the keys to One Stop voting enclosures during the One Stop Early Voting period except for a handful of trusted, known, and oathbound election officials and administrators who need such access in order to perform their duties. These keys are kept track of through chain of custody procedures, so that their location is always known.

A simple way to explain this and prior described transportation processes is that any time after L&A Testing, the machines are locked and sealed with recorded tamper-proof seals, with the locations of the seals contingent upon whether or not the machine is in active use. This practice remains in place until after the machines’ final return home post-election.

Core proof of voting machines not being tampered with during the elections process mostly comes from paper ballot record-based auditing and verification of totals post-election. After each election, the paper ballots containing voters’ actual votes are retained for a minimum of 22 months, so that any discrepancies have adequate time to be discovered and, if necessary, a full hand-eye recount can be conducted. In special cases, this minimum can be extended by court order and many county offices keep physical records for much longer than the minimum time frame.

On Election Night, totals from each individual precinct machine as well as totals from One Stop Early Voting machines and the DS850 Central Count Tabulator are read in to be aggregated. These totals are immediately compared individually to their corresponding paper tapes, just like during L&A Testing.

These totals are also compared against known numbers of issued and returned ballots from One Stop Early Voting and Absentee by Mail, and ATV (Authorization to Vote) form numbers from each precinct polling place, respectively. This is to ensure that each county has the same number of people recorded as having voted as they have ballots recorded as having passed through machines, because those two counts are kept separate to maintain vote secrecy.

Also, in the days immediately after each election something called the ‘Sample Audit’ is performed. During this audit, two precinct groupings of results are randomly selected at the state level to have all their paper ballots from each voting method source pulled and counted by hand, then compared against the results the machines generated. This process provides a crucial element of unpredictability that would be logically crippling for anyone attempting to interfere with machine behavior ahead of the Election.

If major inconsistencies remain after these processes, a reexamination of the Election in question, either statewide or in part, including for individual contests, can be ordered by the State Board or the courts. However, if this process is initiated by those outside the system (political parties, candidate representatives, private citizens, or organizations comprised of private citizens) there are specific legal methods by which this must be done.

Currently the only way to become involved in voting machine security in Alamance County (and in North Carolina in general), aside from seeking a full time position with the county or state, is to put an application in as a poll worker and work one’s way up to Judge. Judges, particularly Chief Judges, are afforded some voting equipment chain of custody related responsibilities if protecting the integrity of voting equipment is one’s passion.

It is important to keep in mind that those positions involve a lot of trust that must be earned and/or vouched for, and there is no wiggle room for acting outside of statutory responsibilities. Any decision in such a position to explore machine security or functionality outside of the bounds of one’s responsibilities could result in criminal charges.

The public may also attend L&A Testing for each election, and Board of Elections meetings. There is no legal basis for any involvement of the public in voting machine security and procedures aside from the above.

The public is (and party appointed Observers are) prohibited from recording machine opening and closing procedures. Any recording taken within a voting enclosure must be by media approved by the Chief Judge/Site Coordinator (or pre-approved by office staff if outside of live voting) and must consist solely of general panoramic shots. If any voters are present during media recording, said voters’ individual permissions must also be obtained in order to film anything.

For legal references, see FAQ question “Can I request a copy of a machine zero or totals tape, or create one myself through a photograph or photocopy?”.

L&A Testing is also not permitted to be recorded by policy in Alamance County, but attendance by request or during open testing periods is permitted, and encouraged. For more information on L&A Testing and when it is conducted, contact our office at the number listed in our contact information.

Board of Elections meetings are already recorded by Board of Elections staff, and are all available on our Youtube channel going back to October 2020. Members of the public present for a Board of Elections meeting will not be permitted to make their own recordings.

You may request a copy of both, though circumstances vary for each.

With a zero tape, you may NOT create any copy or request one until after Election Day. The zero tape must remain in the custody of and secured by election officials throughout the voting process. Party-appointed observers may view it at the polling place while observing the process but the means by which this viewing occurs is entirely up to the Chief Judge (or Site Coordinators at Early Voting).

Any action perceived as impeding or interfering with the process may be answered with removal from the voting enclosure, but generally (and by law, in the case of party-appointed Observers) ample warnings are provided before this is necessary. However, it should be noted that if a dispute over rights to monitor any part of the process ever takes a threatening or violent tone, poll workers are instructed to not hesitate to involve law enforcement.

With a totals tape, you may request a copy as soon as it is available, although when that copy is provided is entirely up to the Chief Judge or office staff, depending on where it is requested. Often a copy is posted physically at the polling place itself, and Chief Judges/Judges can print an extra copy if one is not posted by default. A picture can be taken of that copy as well, but NOT of any accompanying closing procedures.

Note that on-site totals tapes restrictions and procedures do not apply to Early Voting sites. Tabulators used at Early Voting sites are not actually closed until Election Day, so no Early Voting totals tapes even exist until then. One Stop Early Voting daily reconciliation procedures are performed by comparing ballots cast to ATV forms rather than votes, because it is illegal to acquire results from those machines prior to Election Day.

Finally, ExpressVote Ballot Marking Devices do not record results, therefore they do not (and cannot) provide any tapes. Any request for a copy of ExpressVote tapes will be met with confusion, as no such tapes exist.

Legal references for this section: N.C.G.S. 163-182.2(a)(3); 08 NCAC 04 .0304(a); 08 NCAC 10B .0105(h)