First day of early voting sees large turnout
By Steve Herring
Published in News on October 24, 2014 2:28 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Dozens of people line up outside the Belfast Volunteer Fire Department on Thursday for early voting. Some voters waited 45 minutes or more to cast their ballots.
sherring@newsargus.com
More than 2,200 ballots were cast in Wayne County on Thursday during the first day of one-stop voting, prior to the mid-term general election on Tuesday, Nov. 4.
The 2,221 ballots cast at the county's five early-voting sites fell about 200 shy of matching the first-day total of 2,388 at just three sites for the 2012 presidential election.
"For the first day, (turnout) was very good," said Rosemary Blizzard, Wayne County elections director. "We were very pleased with the turnout. We hope the next nine days that we will have the same results."
The first day was mostly problem-free, she said.
"We did get some calls about where (a voter) needed to go," she said.
During the first day, 1,084 Democrats and 832 Republican voted. White voters outnumbered black voters 1,423 to 755 and women voters outnumbered men, 1,153 to 1,057.
The one-stop site at the Veterans Services Office on Ash Street recorded the most voters, 558.
In the 2012 election, 37,000 of the 52,000 who voted did so either through early voting or absentee voting, Mrs. Blizzard said. Of the 37,000 who voted early, 35,000 were at one-stop locations, she said.
There are some changes to early voting -- state law reduced the number of days to 10 and eliminated same-day registration.
The new law that requires voters to show a photo identification prior to voting does not go into effect until 2016. However, voters can expect to be asked by election officials if they currently have the ID that will be required for 2016.
Voters who do not have the ID will be asked to sign their one-stop application, and information about obtaining an ID prior to 2016 will be provided.
The early-voting locations are: Veterans Service Office, 2001 E. Ash St.; Belfast Fire Station, 3212 U.S. 117 North; Little River Shopping Center, 1312C West Grantham St.; New Hope Friends Church, 4451 U.S. 70 East; and Mount Olive Civic Center, 110 W. Main St.
The hours of operation are: today and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m. at the Veterans Services Office only; Monday through Friday, Oct. 27 to 31, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday, Nov. 1, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
"We will be releasing two reports that will reflect the daily one-stop voter turnout," Mrs. Blizzard said. "The first report will show a statistical breakdown of the number of voters daily by party, race, gender and ethnicity.
"The second report will be a listing of voter names. This report will be in text file format. Instructions for converting this file are already on our website."
The first priority each evening after the polls close will be to receive all of the day's voting material in the elections board office from each of the five sites.
"From there, we will be auditing all information and updating any voters who may have updated their name or address while one-stop voting," she said. "Our goal each night is to release the statistical report before leaving for the evening. We ask for your patience in releasing the second report as it does take some time to process all updates.
"We plan to provide the prior day voter list by 9 a.m. the following day. If we can get the list processed sooner, we will do so, but understand accuracy is and always will be our primary objective."
The statistics for each day are posted at www.waynegov.com/Page/974.