Ten months in an election year, Americans are dying daily by record numbers from a communicable disease. To mitigate the risk of voters contracting the Coronavirus on election day Nov 03, 2020, the Federal Election Commission mandated early voting at polling stations and an option for voters to mail their ballots using the United States Postal service.
Early voting in Cumberland County, North Carolina, began Oct 15 and ends Oct 31, yet nineteen days before the general election, a tsunami of Voters flooded the polling stations on the first day of early voting.
Fayetteville, NC, City Councilman for District 6 Christopher Davis said, “I think people honestly are afraid that their vote won’t count for a various combination of things. The conversation we’ve heard about mail-in voting was potential voter fraud, … which challenged people to get out in person.”
Vich Fullard (center) was a registered voter of Cumberland County, who stood in line for over an hour on the first day of early voting because she does not trust mailing her ballot and wanted the personal experience of voting.
In this case “I know that I voted, I don’t know if people can put it in the wrong box, or throw it away, I don’t know. I have to go in there to make sure they put it in the box,” said Fullard.
Mario Delavega volunteered at the Cliffdale Recreation Center polling site explained the voting process inside the voting site.
“They have plenty of people helping out with the voting process, and they also have representatives of each party who are interested in making sure that everything is done legally,” said Delavega. “If they see anything that is somewhat iffy, they will go to the Judge, there is someone called a Judge there, and they report what they have seen, and they will look into it to see if it's legit or if it was just an incident.”
The North Carolina State Board of Elections reported that 11% of North Carolinians voted on Oct 15, 2020, which means unlike the 2016 election when 166,000 people voted, this year approximately 780,000 registered voters voted on the first day of early voting despite a lurking national pandemic.
But what energized the avalanche of voters to come out on the first day, when they have two weeks and a mail-in option to safeguard themselves from the Coronavirus?
Counselman Davis, retired Army officer, currently serving his first term on the City Council attempted to answer,
“Under normal circumstances with less dynamic, COVID will be the centerpiece but based on the personalities and some of the fireworks we have seen in the political arena, I don’t think COVID-19 is going to stop voters turn out at all,” said Davis. “I think people see COVID as the necessary thing to get their voices heard and weirdly enough it may be the thing that challenges people to value their vote.”
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