ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, N.C. — County Boards of Election across the Triad want to make sure Election Day goes smoothly.
So far this year, there have been challenges - and that's especially true for Rockingham County, with poll workers catching COVID-19, to a lawsuit, to an unexpected resignation Sunday night.
The five-member Rockingham County Board of Elections is now a four-member board after Jeff Parris resigned following a meeting. Though it was sudden, Board Chairman Royce Richardson says he's confident they can get the job done.
"I don't know why one of the members resigned, really," Richardson told WFMY News 2, "We had a meeting [Sunday] afternoon and we discussed some of these personnel issues that we’ve been dealing with for basically three weeks.
"I don’t know if it was a disagreement with what we were doing, or what we were talking about, but anyway, I got home last night and I got an email from that board member saying that he was resigning from the board immediately, and got a letter from him today. I sent that letter to the State Board.
"We met again [Monday]. We still have four members, which is a quorum. We can meet and carry on business until the state appoints another member for our board."
It's the latest in a series of issues in the county related to elections.
Last week, the Board closed an early voting site in Reidsville after 12 of its 13 poll workers either tested positive for coronavirus or were exposed. Richardson said they closed the site down because they couldn't get anyone to take over the polling place operations.
A judge ordered the site reopened after Democrats filed a lawsuit.
"A group took our Board to court last Friday afternoon, and the judge ordered that we open that place back up on Saturday. So, we beat the bushes and we had enough people to go over there Saturday and opened the site for the last day of one-stop," he said.
Richardson says despite challenges, they've had help from the state, supervising the process. At this point, much of the Board's work - from training poll workers to approving absentee ballots - is done.
As of Monday night, nearly 60 percent of registered voters in the county have cast a ballot.
WFMY News 2 reached out to now-former Board member Jeff Parris for a comment on why he resigned, but haven't heard back.
