NC elections board drops Sunday early vote in 10 more counties

CLAYTON HENKEL | NC NEWSLINE

Krista Savage-White traveled to the NC State Board of Elections meeting Aug. 20, 2026, from rural Gates County.  Savage-White was concerned about a proposal to cut Sunday early voting in Pasquotank County and move the county’s early voting site away from the K.E. White Graduate Center on the Elizabeth City State University campus.

When members of county boards of election disagreed on whether to offer Sunday hours during early voting for this year’s midterm elections, the North Carolina Board of Elections usually went along with plans to cut them. 

Ten counties that had Sunday voting in the last midterm election won’t have any this year as a result of state Board of Elections votes this week. The state board met Aug. 20 to consider early voting plans for 20 counties where local boards of election could not agree on locations, dates, or times.

The Republican majority on the state Board of Elections agreed with decisions of GOP majorities in Anson, Chatham, Columbus, Greene, Harnett, Nash, Pasquotank, Pitt, Union, and Wayne – counties that opened polls on Sundays for voting four years ago – to drop those hours this year. 

Those decisions continued the contraction of Sunday voting since Republicans took majorities on the state Board of Elections and county boards last year. 

Election boards in about a dozen counties that had Sunday hours in 2022 had already agreed in their unanimous plans to drop them for this fall’s general election, NC Newline reported.

In addition to those 10 counties, Lenoir dropped Sunday voting this year. Lenoir elections board members could not agree on an early voting plan, but neither of the options they asked state board members to consider included Sunday hours. 

The partisan disagreement over Sunday voting goes back for years. Democrats have largely supported them, while Republicans are generally opposed. That pattern continued this week in 3-2, party-line votes with Republicans on the state board approving early voting plans that didn’t include Sundays. 

Sunday voting supporters knew those hours were in serious danger of getting chopped. 

A former staffer in state Auditor Dave Boliek’s office, Dallas Woodhouse, encouraged county board chairs to drop Sunday hours. Woodhouse is a political operative and former state Republican Party executive director whom Boliek hired to work with county boards. 

At an Aug. 20 rally, the Rev. Dr. Floyd Wicker of the Lillington First Missionary Baptist Church in Harnett County spoke against cutting Sunday hours, which are important to Black and brown voters.  
“It appears that some people on our state Board of Elections are trying to make it more difficult for people in my community to vote,” he said. 

Republicans argued that Sundays should be reserved for church and family, that opening polls on Sunday isn’t worth the cost, and that Sundays are burdensome and boring for poll workers. 

Democrats argued that Sunday voting hours are important for people who work long or irregular hours, people with long commutes, and people with care-giving responsibilities. Older people who don’t drive may only be able to vote in person on Sundays, when family members are available to provide transportation, supporters said. 

In an attempt to refute claims that Sundays are not cost effective, some county board members said Sunday hours cost less per vote. Sunday hours only appear to be under-used, they said, because polls are open only a few hours on Sundays. 

Betsy McCormick, a Democrat on the Harnett board, told state board members that in 2024, the county’s early voting sites served 31 voters per hour on weekdays and 32.5 voters per hour on Sunday. 
Eight percent of early voters cast ballots on Sunday that year, she said, while Sunday hours were only 5% of the total early voting hours available.  

“Sunday voting hours are a cost-effective way to provide a wider range of voters the opportunity to cast their vote,” McCormick said.

Danny Moody, chair of the Harnett County Board of Elections, told the state board that Sunday voting traffic is light, and he heard no complaints about a lack of Sunday hours for this year’s primaries. 

“I do not believe that Sunday is needed, or perhaps wanted, in Harnett County,” Moody said. At one of the county’s sites, only four people voted on a Sunday in 2020, he said. 
The voting rights group Democracy North Carolina denounced the cuts. 

“The cuts to Sunday voting in many counties will have a chilling effect on voters, full stop,” Brian Kennedy, policy director for Democracy NC , said in a statement. “Cutting Sunday hours and sites not only has a huge impact on working families; it also creates confusion in communities who have grown accustomed to certain hours and locations being available to them during elections.”

Though he is no longer a Boliek employee, Woodhouse has been active in promoting early voting plans. Democrats’ objects are rooted in partisan anger over not controlling elections, Woodhouse wrote on X.

“It’s a proud day for North Carolina voters and for me personally, as the GOP-majority State Board gave final approval to a comprehensive 2026 early-voting plan that offers unprecedented voter access for any North Carolina midterm election in history, as measured by total voting sites, total voting hours and even weekend hours,” he wrote. 

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