Right now, a lot of local business activity has slowed to a crawl because of the COVID-19 shut down orders, but that’s certainly not the case when it comes to election activity.
According to Guilford County Board of Elections Director Charlie Collicutt, there’s a tremendous amount of pre-election business being taken care of right now even though Election Day is still two months away.
“It’s going to be an incredibly large election from an activity point of view,” Collicutt told the Guilford County Board of Commissioners recently during a work session.
“The big one is absentee by mail requests,” he said. “We’re getting just tons of absentee by mail requests. We’ve gotten three times more requests right now than all the ballots we mailed out in 2016.”
The Board of Elections has already received over 30,000 requests for absentee ballots by mail. In 2016, the total, when it was all said and done, was right at 12,000.
Collicutt said just tracking the by mail voting this election would take a “huge” effort.
He already warned the commissioners months ago that there would be extra costs for holding the election during a pandemic. Fortunately, the federal government has been very generous with COVID-19 relief funding for Guilford County, and the commissioners have set aside some of that money for things like disinfecting polling places and handling the extra voting by mail.
“A lot of the costs of by mail voting are covered because it is a direct result of the pandemic,” Collicutt said.
He also said there have been a lot of voter registrations, changes of address and other paperwork to handle for the 2020 election, and he added that early voting sites would all be open at the same time this year rather than staggered as in the past.
Just wondering who has been sending out forms to complete requesting absentee ballots? Both my wife and I received them even though we will vote at the polls. Was this something that the Board of Elections did or was it the Demonic party trying to create chaos?
AB Nelson – Didn’t Trump just ask people in NC to vote as many times as possible. Try to think for yourself and really identify evidence to support this fraudulent and fascist narrative by the GOP. You can look within the borders of NC to find evidence of election fraud by Republicans.
Think for yourself.
Wait a minute – Twist words around much. He said to send in your mail in vote and then go to the polls to make sure it was counted. Not sure why you would do both but if you find out at the polls your vote has not been counted, , then cast your vote at the polls. Maybe if you did a little more research into our election system, you would realize you can not vote 2x’s. If you mail in and go to the polls and it has been counted you are sent away. If it has not been counted and you vote at the poll, and then your mail in is “found” it will not be counted. Please do your research before you go on the hate bandwagon and spread misinformation.
A woman who has lived (and voted) in GA for the last 4 years received an absentee ballot application from Forsyth County. No telling how many more were sent out to ineligible voters. And in spite of what the other commenter thinks, most reported cases of voter fraud involve Democrats.
Well, Christy – I’m waiting for your evidence ……. Just saying something and spreading innuendo and false evidence doesn’t make it true. Sorry.
Where is the Id to vote that we voted in a couple years ago ?Now we are going to have your dead mother/grandmother vote in this election.I forgot the dogs and cats will be getting their voting notice as well.Also all the people at nursing homes will be getting a card as well ,even the ones that are not coherent!!Who will fill their card for them ?I guess if I was a Democrat,I could go in and get a lot of votes for the Dems.I might get Joe voted in so he could stop all Trumps tax cuts and also raise my taxes by at least one half more than I ‘m paying now.I being a Loyal and blinded Democrat love togive my money to the government because I don’t have the ability to spend the money that I earn .I guess you’d say I am just DUMB and can’t think for myself.
I certainly hope that all these absentee ballots are checked by impartial and honest worker to make sure that they are received from registered voters who are still alive and living at the address in that precinct.
Absentee ballots also need to be checked against in person votes.
And college students who vote here should NOT also be registered in another place.
I don’t know who is sending out the request for absentee ballots, however it was a great idea to ensure that every citizen can participate in the election. No one knows what could happen on election day, with covid-19 and the postal service issues. People will have their absentee ballots ahead of time. Citizens should only vote once; either by mail or in person. It is illegal in NC to vote twice!
On another note the press release from our president on 9/2/20 in Wilmington, NC, where he made some disturbing remarks. See below and feel free to fact check:
“Let them send it in and let them go vote, and if their system’s as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote,” the president said. “If it isn’t tabulated, they’ll be able to vote.”