70 days until election. Have you thought about how you are going to cast your ballot this year?

In North Carolina, you have several methods to cast your vote.
On election day, November 3, you must vote in your precinct. MOST ELECTION-DAY VOTING LOCATIONS HAVE CHANGED THIS YEAR due to Covid precautions. Do not plan on going to the voting location you used in the past, as most likely it will be not be there. More on that in a later email.
For two weeks before election day, you can vote in-person at one of the early voting locations. I’ll put out more information about that in a couple weeks.
You can request an absentee ballot now. If for some reason you might not get to the polls in person, any registered voter can vote with an absentee ballot. That is a great primary or backup plan in case something happens and you can’t get to the polls. If you are not registered to vote, stop everything, right now, and do so. Go here and register. If you have not yet requested an absentee ballot, stop everything, right now, and do so. Go here now. If you later decide to vote in person, you do not have to send in your absentee vote, but now you have a backup plan. Ballots will start to be mailed on September 4. If you vote absentee you cannot later vote in person.
The North Carolina absentee ballot procedure seems to be secure. Each ballot will have a barcode that the voter can use to check the progress of the ballot from mailing to deliver to voting at the board of elections.
You can check your voters registration by going to this website: https://vt.ncsbe.gov/RegLkup/

Early Voting. The days for early voting in each North Carolina county are determined by a unanimous vote of the Board of Elections members. This year the three Democrat members have pushed to expand early voting on Sunday. The three Republican members have voted against Sunday voting. Since they could not agree, the decision now goes to the State Board of Elections meeting on August 31. You can express your opinion at https://bit.ly/3ipadmf no later than noon on August 27. Please do so.

Reagan Day Dinner. Because we cannot plan on what edict will come next from Governor Cooper regarding coronavirus, we cannot hold this year’s Reagan Day dinner in person. Please plan on attending our virtual Reagan Day meet-the-candidate event on September 19. A future newsletter will have login information for the event.

Volunteer. We would like to have volunteers all day at every one of the polling places this year to hand out sample ballots and answer voter’s questions about candidates. Please consider spending some time with your fellow patriots this year, and volunteer for this important work. Simply go here and let us know if you can help.

From one of our nation’s Founding Fathers:
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must … undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
― Tom Paine

Terry Schmidt
Chair, Chatham County Republican Party