GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. — The country is hours away from Election Day, many North Carolinians have already voted, while others are preparing to do so.
165 Guilford County polls will be open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. To cast your ballot on Election Day, voters must go to their assigned polling place with their identification.
"Every registered voter will first check in and then they'll get their paper ballot, and then stick it into our tabulator, it then collects all those ballots. I am confident in that system. We've done a lot of pre-election logic and accuracy testing, mock election, mock voting on these things to make sure they're accurate," explained Guilford County Board of Elections Director, Charlie Collicutt.
While we don't know just yet who is going to win this race, what we do know is that this election is going to be one for the books.
State Board of Elections announced Sunday that more than 4.2 million voters cast ballots at early in-person voting sites.
Voters we spoke to Monday explained what issues they are voting for that mean the most to them.
Catherin Holcombe explained, "I vote for love and honestly women, and people making a living wage. Those sort of things I voted for, for the love for our earth, for climate."
Corissa Hogan also shared her thoughts, "we come from a law enforcement family, and Trump has always supported law enforcement, and that's just been a great thing for us. And also, I'm so ready to have a better economy and a better future for my kids. I have four kids, and I want them to have what I've been able to have, a house, have money in their pocket, be able to grow and I look forward to Trump doing that."
Four years ago, a record over 3 and a half million people voted at hundreds of sites in all 100 counties during the early-voting period in our state.
This year, the state exceeded that total by last Thursday according to the state board of elections.
Turnout in the 25 western counties affected by Hurricane Helene was stronger than the rest of the state at 58.9% — about 2% higher than statewide turnout.
In addition to president, North Carolina residents are choosing a new governor, attorney general and several other statewide positions.
Some years we've learned presidential election results within hours of the first polls closing in recent years, it's taken longer.
Unlike early voting, voters cannot register to vote on Election Day. Voters who are not registered to vote and want to vote on Election Day will be given a provisional ballot. Provisional ballots will be counted during canvas, in tight races it could be the deciding factor.
"It may not be able to be called for sure on Tuesday night, it could be very close, it could be within the margin of a recount, there could be other election protests or challenges. And just these final last minute absentee ballots and provisional ballots that are still to be counted. So, depending on how close it is, it really could have to take until we canvas on the 15th to know," explained Collicutt.
Absentee ballots must be turned into county board of elections office tomorrow by 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.
