Bill reduces early-voting window
HIGH POINT — A bill introduced recently in the N.C. General Assembly could dramatically change early voting as the practice marks its 25th anniversary this year.
House Bill 66 would reduce the amount of time for in-person early voting statewide by essentially a week and a half, from up to 17 days to only six days. Early voting now starts on the third Thursday of the month before Election Day but according to this bill would begin on the second Monday before Election Day, which would eliminate all early voting on Sundays.
'Currently, North Carolina is in the broad middle of states in how many days it provides for early voting,' said John Dinan, a professor of political science at Wake Forest University. 'But this bill would leave North Carolina with one of the shorter early voting periods of the states that allow in-person early voting.'
Supporters of the legislation say it would save money for the state and counties that administer elections while still providing time to vote early. Detractors say that shortening early voting will make it more inconvenient for North Carolinians and could discourage many people from casting a ballot.
Early voting has steadily grown in popularity since it was introduced during North Carolina's general election in 2000. For last year's presidential general election, 4.2 million voters cast a ballot early out of a total of 5.7 million overall voters, according to the N.C. State Board of Elections.
Shortening early voting could upset voters who have gotten used to the current period for the option to cast a ballot, said Brandon Lenoir, an associate professor of political science and strategic communication at High Point University.
'Many voters like the convenience of having roughly two weeks to cast their ballot,' Lenoir told The High Point Enterprise. 'Reducing the early voting period to a week takes away some of that convenience and gives voters fewer days to vote. Fewer days means more people standing in line to vote.'
House Bill 66 was introduced by Republican representatives in the GOP-controlled N.C. General Assembly. But the partisan impact of the proposal isn't cut and dried, Dinan said.
'For some time in North Carolina, Democrats took much more advantage of early voting than Republicans did. But this shifted dramatically in 2024 after Republicans began encouraging their voters to vote early, and they did vote early in significant numbers,' he said.
Lenoir said that shortening the period for early voting could lessen the burden on political campaigns.
'It costs the candidates time and money to have campaign staff and volunteers work the polls for those extra days,' he said.
Dinan said that it's not certain what effects shortening early voting would have on counties that administer elections.
'This bill would ease some of the pressures on local governments and poll workers by limiting the number of days they would have to be open for early voting,' he said. 'But on the other hand, it would increase the number of voters who would be showing up on the remaining limited number of early voting days and would create more pressure on them in that sense.'
Dinan said that it's likely House Bill 66 would face challenges in the courts if it passes.
'A federal court issued a ruling a decade ago preventing enforcement of a comprehensive set of elections law changes that included shortening the early-voting period,' Dinan said.
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