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North Carolina Is The First To Mail Out Mail-In Ballots

North Carolina will be one of the state’s that decides this fall’s presidential election, plus which party controls the U.S. Senate.  It also has one of the most watched gubernatorial elections in the U.S. this fall, plus every seat in the North Carolina General Assembly is on the ballot, all of the council state, seats on county commissions, city councils, town aldermen…you get the point. 

North Carolina is first in the country in this respect – it’s the first state to mail out mail-in ballots that have been requested by voters.  They go out Friday September 4th, and because of the pandemic, requests for absentee mail-in ballots this year in North Carolina are more than 15 times greater than at this point four years ago.  BPR's Matt Bush chatted over Zoom with Buncombe County elections director Corrine Duncan about all things mail-in ballot for the debut episode of Blue Ridge Public Radio's new program BPR News Presents: The Porch.  You can hear it Friday morning September 4th at 9 a.m., with an encore presentation Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m.  You can also listen to the show anytime with the free BPR mobile app or through Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts.

Mail-in ballots can be requested until October 27th in North Carolina, but because of expected delays in postal service, those wishing to vote that route are being urged to request their ballot and vote as early as possible.  Early voting runs from October 15th through the 31st.  For more information, go to NCSBE.gov, where you can register to vote, request a ballot, and look up your own voter profile.   Elections officials want to remind voters that if they vote by absentee mail-in ballot, and then again in person, it's a Class I felony.

One of the elections voters in Western North Carolina will decide this fall is the open seat in the 11th Congressional District.  The major party nominees in that race – Republican Madison Cawthorn and Democrat Moe Davis – will hold their first debates Friday September 4th and Saturday September 5th.  The only place to watch it live is on the Blue Ridge Public Radio Facebook page, as we our partnering with our friends at Smoky Mountain News and Mountain Xpress for those debates.  They start each night at 7:30.  

Matt Bush joined Blue Ridge Public Radio as news director in August 2016. Excited at the opportunity the build up the news service for both stations as well as help launch BPR News, Matt made the jump to Western North Carolina from Washington D.C. For the 8 years prior to coming to Asheville, he worked at the NPR member station in the nation's capital as a reporter and anchor. Matt primarily covered the state of Maryland, including 6 years of covering the statehouse in Annapolis. Prior to that, he worked at WMAL in Washington and Metro Networks in Pittsburgh, the city he was born and raised in.