ASHEBORO – There will still be weekend early voting in Randolph County for the 2022 general election, but there will be a slightly different twist.
The Randolph County Board of Elections voted to nix a Sunday early voting date for this fall. Instead, there will be three Saturdays when early voting is conducted.
Melissa Johnson, who’s director of the county’s Board of Elections, said there was interest from some citizens to restore a Sunday date at last week’s August meeting. However, that decision had been made nearly a month earlier and needed to remain in place based on the board’s policies and the timetable in advance of the election.
“They couldn’t revisit it,” Johnson said.
In the spring, the first Sunday of the early voting cycle was used as a voting day. The county-wide turnout that day (May 1) was 285, marking the lowest number of any of the 14 days of early voting.
“We’ve had Sunday voting the last two elections, but they decided not to go with Sunday voting,” Johnson said. “The only thing extra is we’re going to have all three Saturdays during the period. They struck a compromise — no Sunday and all three Saturdays.”
Early voting dates run from Oct. 20-Nov. 5. The times are 8 a.m.-7:30 p.m. weekdays and 8 a.m.-1 p.m. the first two Saturdays and then 8 a.m.-3 p.m. the final day. That’s a total of 155 hours at each location.
The sites are the Board of Elections office on North Fayetteville Street in Asheboro, Braxton Craven School in Trinity, Randleman Civic Center and Franklinville United Methodist Church.
There were 14 days of early voting for the spring’s primary, with a turnout of 10,205.
The four locations for early voting remain the same as the spring’s primary based on a unanimous vote of the Board of Elections. That involved moving an Archdale location to Braxton Craven School.
“We’re sticking with that,” Johnson said.
Braxton Craven School was the second-most visited early voting site in the county, attracting 2,108 voters for the primary.
The only municipal races in Randolph County on this year’s docket involve the City of Archdale, which holds its elections in even-numbered years. The filing period for those Archdale races has ended.
