Extended voting hours planned Saturday in Pamlico

The Pamlico County Board of Elections will extend its Saturday early voting hours in response to a request from State Board of Elections request. The Craven County Board of Elections will not.

Jones County's Board of Elections will meet this morning to decide.

Early voting had been scheduled to end at 1 p.m. Saturday in most counties. But the state Board of Elections, in an emergency meeting Thursday, asked that counties extend early voting until 5 p.m. That request must be approved by local boards of elections, most of which have scheduled their own emergency meetings for today to discuss the issue.

Pamlico County Elections Director Lisa Bennett said she got the memo from the State Board of Elections about noon and called Chairman Martin Feinberg immediately.

"He thought it was a wonderful idea, not that we have had long lines but it will give more people an opportunity to vote early," Bennett said.

Craven County's election board voted unanimously not to extend the time, said Tonya Pitts, elections director.

"I think it is noteworthy that our workers have been here, at minimum, until 6:30 every night, one night until 7:30 p.m.," Pitts said. "Because the policy and laws allow and specifically state that anyone in line at closing time can vote, we feel that we accommodated the voters adequately."

Craven Elections Board Chairman Esther Hardin said: "If voters are in line at 1 p.m., they will be able to vote. We will be here until the last voter has voted on Saturday at all locations if it takes until after 5 p.m."

When the last vote was cast on Thursday, 23,142 of Craven County's 67,511 registered voters, or 34 percent, had voted at five sites. Craven County early sites will be open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. They include Craven County Administration Building, Havelock-Craven County Public Library, West Craven Performing Arts Center, No. 7 Township Fire and Rescue, Cove City Fire Department.

More than 3,553 voters, or 36 percent of Pamlico County's 9,698 registered voters, have voted so far at the county's two sites: the County Courthouse and Grantsboro Town Hall. The final one-stop early voting hours in Pamlico are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.

Bennett said several Craven County voters have come to their early voting sites because they heard there were no lines.

About 1,500 people have voted so far at the county's one-stop early voting site in the Jones County Board of Elections office.

Heavy turnout has led to long lines in some areas, particularly in Mecklenburg and Guilford counties. Officials in those counties sought the extra voting hours.

Triangle counties also are seeing a large turnout, but haven't been plagued by long lines.

"We're doing well on getting the numbers through," said Cherie Poucher, director of the Wake County Board of Elections. By the end of the day Wednesday, 178,226 people had voted in Wake - and Poucher expected today, Friday and Saturday to be the busiest yet for early voting.

Still, she said she's heard of no early voter having to wait more than 30 minutes to cast a ballot.

In Orange County, the average wait has been 15 minutes or less, said director Tracy Reams of the Board of Elections. By the end of the day Wednesday, 38,904 people - more than 40 percent of registered voters - already had voted in Orange.

Statewide, 30 percent of registered voters had cast ballots through Wednesday night.