Absentee voting info from the Rowan County Board of Elections Director and strong opinions from local writers, Alan Menius, Evelyn Uddin-Khan, John Doherty, Richard Creel, NC writer Cash Michaels, and national writer Ted Williams. Support local papers like our Salisbury Post. From senior PBS correspondent Judy Woodruff -“The loss of local newspapers is depriving communities of some of the glue that holds them together.”
Elections Insight – The absentee ballot process
Rowan County Board of Elections Director, Sharon Main, explains the absentee ballot process.
Absentee ballots are ballots mailed directly to the voter to be completed and mailed or delivered back to the Board of Elections Office. In North Carolina any registered voter may request, receive and vote a mail-in absentee ballot. There are many reasons a voter may need to request this method of voting. Some voters are in medical or nursing home facilities and are unable to travel to the polls to vote. Some voters are out of the country in the military or working overseas. Others may just be out of town or working a heavy schedule that does not permit time to vote in person.
To request an absentee ballot, you must be a registered voter in Rowan County, complete an Absentee Ballot Request Form and submit it to the Board of Elections by Oct. 20 at 5 p.m. The form can be filled out and submitted online through the State Board of Elections secure portal at https://votebymail.ncsbe.gov/app/home. If you prefer using a paper form, you can print off a blank copy of the form from the Rowan County Board of Elections website at https://www.rowancountync.gov/Elections under the Quick Links section or you can call 704-216-8140 and request a form mailed to you.
We are on the doorstep of the midterm elections. I hope that is not news to any voter reading this or hearing similar messages from other sources. It is not cliché to say that this is a critical election and a critical time for our democracy. We have reason to fear the disruption of the process. We also should hope the outcome recreates the structure of guardrails and accountability that has all but disappeared from our government, if not our society, over the past decade.
Our best hope for thwarting disruption is to take personal responsibility for your sacred vote. Check that your registration and eligibility are intact. Make a plan to vote, whether in person in early voting, in person on election day, or by absentee ballot. Decide what’s best for you. (I always feel that the earlier, the better.) Whatever you decide, confirm that you know where and when you will go. Take nothing for granted. Things can change from election to election, especially when disruption is one side’s strategy for “winning” the election. Use the N.C. Board of Elections voter lookup tool to check your registration, confirm your voting location and view the sample ballot for your unique location.
I urge you to use the sample ballot to decide ahead of time for whom you will cast your votes. You can learn where candidates stand on issues important to you, and you can even compare their record to those positions.
Do not fall victim to the tsunami of billionaire political ads negatively defining the opposition. Sadly, we must presume they are misleading, if not outright false. Fact-checking heinous assertions takes only a simple Google search.
I voted for the first time 54 years ago. Virtually every election is hyped as the most important election ever. Not always true, I think, for the first half of my voting life. But, elections certainly have consequences. With the benefit of a half-century of hindsight, I think that in this new century, elections have brought seriously adverse consequences. I hope and beg that you will approach Nov. 3 with sincerity and thoughtfulness.
Evelyn Uddin-Khan: Elections and democracy go together
Voting day used to be an adventure! In the old days, people eagerly went to vote; there was a certain excitement in voting and waiting to see if your candidate won.
If she won, you were happy, and if he lost, you accepted gracefully and went to sleep. Next time!
Back then, life was simple and being magnanimous and accepting that the “best” candidate was victorious was the decent thing to do. Wait for next time!
…Speaker Johnson is freely admitting, even boasting, that he and his fellow Congressional Republicans (the party of “law and order”) intend to subvert election law in January 2027.
Ted Williams: Will North Carolina’s red wolf survive the Trump Administration?
And we won’t lose just red wolves. Hundreds of other threatened and endangered organisms will be ushered into oblivion. And the most successful habitat protection and restoration law ever enacted will cease to exist.
I have now received five mailings attacking Roy Cooper for “having released violent criminals from prison.” This is far from the reality of what occurred and only displays once again the vileness and gross dishonesty of the Republicans in this campaign for the senate seat. There is information via WRAL’s fact-check, and this shows that the release was related to a suit aimed at protecting prisoners from COVID infection. Check out WRAL’s information, and, the next time you receive or hear or view any Republican claims regarding the senate race or anything else, expect nothing other than lies designed to manipulate your emotions.
“I get it, I get it! Roy Cooper is one of the most powerful and successful figures in North Carolina election politics, so in order to defeat the formidable Democrat, you’ve got to come with guns loaded for bear, because the people of North Carolina genuinely like him, and trust him.
…But the crap and outright lies the Michael Whatley campaign, and those reportedly supporting the former RNC head to be elected to the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by outgoing Senator Thom Tillis, have been telling in recent Whatley TV campaign commercials go beyond the pale.
…Before you cast your extremely valuable ballot for any candidate, please do a little homework on who they are, what policies they support and don’t support, and if telling the truth is something they seem to have a problem with. Then make your decision, and vote in this fall’s Nov. 3 midterm elections.
We need you, but we need you because ALL of us deserve honesty in the people we elect to office.”
