LUMBERTON — Voters participating in Tuesday’s special election to fill two seats on the City Council will not have to show identification before casting a ballot.
The mandates of the constitutional amendment approved by voters in the Nov. 6 general election will not be in effect for the election to fill the Precinct 3 and 7 seats, said Tina Bledsoe, interim director of the Board of Elections office.
Precinct 3 became vacant when Burnis Wilkins resigned to become sheriff, and the Precinct 7 seat has been vacant since the July death of Leon Maynor, who had held it since 1995. Voters will have the option to write in a person’s name not on the ballot.
Only two candidates have filed for the special election: John Carroll is unopposed in Precinct 3 and Eric Chavis is unopposed in Precinct 7.
The price tag will be about $5,7oo, Bledsoe said Tuesday. That is down from the early estimate of about $8,000, which Bledsoe said was a bad calculation on misinformation.
Seven sites — two in Precinct 3 and five in Precinct 7 — are being used because only the county Board of Elections has the authority to pass a resolution saying voters could cast a ballot outside of their assigned wards. All county boards and the state board were dissolved on Dec. 28 after a three-judge panel ruled that the board’s makeup was unconstitutional.
Voting hours at all seven sites will be 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
When voters come to cast ballots they will see new something new. The election is being used to test a new data system planned for use in future elections across North Carolina.
“They are using us as a guinea pig,” Bledsoe said.
The On-site Voter Registration Database employs laptop computers on which poll workers will search for voters’ names to compare them with names on the list of registered voters. Once a voter’s name is verified, the poll worker will use the system to print out a verification form that the voter will sign and take to the table where the voter will be given a paper ballot.
The paper files with voters’ names and addresses that voters are accustomed to seeing will be on-site just in case a problem arises, Bledsoe said.
The City Council seats will remain empty until new county and state boards of elections are established. The new council members can’t be sworn into office until the election results are certified by the county and state boards.
Gov. Roy Cooper is expected to have a new state Board of Elections in place on Jan. 31.