Election Day, 11/2/21, has been declared a teacher workday at Sanford Creek Elementary School. Therefore there should be no morning and afternoon "carpool" lines. This should make parking easier for all voters, in particular those needing curbside parking or accessible parking. Updated: 9/23/21
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Know your precinct: Everyone needs to know in which precinct you are now registered (see below) and go to vote in the polling place for that precinct if you vote on Election Day. That is where your pollbook data is located; it is not in the pollbooks at any other polling place on Election Day. Keep your registration data up-to-date, e.g., if you move. Updated: 11/17/20
Upcoming election: The next election for precinct 19-19 will be a municipal election on 11/2/2021. Information about it will be posted on the Wake County Board of Elections (WCBOE) Upcoming Election Information web page, which will be updated as election day approaches. Updated: 10/1/21
The political party with which you are affiliated does not matter for this election; your party affiliation does not determine the ballot you will receive. It is important to know that this will be a municipal election. If you are in Precinct 19-19 but don't live within the corporate limits of either Wake Forest or Rolesville, then you are "unincorporated" and are not eligible to vote in this election. Unincorporated voters are not in the pollbooks for a municipal election. Your recorded municipality (Wake Forest, Rolesville, or Unincorporated) is part of the registration information you can view, as described in the next section. Updated: 10/1/21
Consider volunteering to be a precinct official for this and future elections.
Getting registration and ballot information: You can easily check your voter registration information, including your currently recorded name, residence address, party affiliation, precinct, polling place, and municipality (if any). You will also see the voting jurisdictions you are in, e.g., NC House, Wake County Commissioner, and School (Board of Education). Normally a month or more before Election Day you can view the exact ballot(s) that will be available to you for that election. Always keep your voter registration data up-to-date, e.g., if you move. Of course, if you have not already done so, please register to vote! You can register as described in the how to update section below.
Mail-in absentee ballots and early voting sites: If you will not be able to vote at your polling place on Election Day or just choose to vote early, you can either submit an absentee ballot or vote at an early voting site before Election Day.
For this election, there are not many early voting sites. The closest one to our area is the Wake County Board of Elections Office at 1200 N. New Hope Rd. (see map). Updated: 9/24/21
Maps and pictures: The following items focus on Precinct 19-19 since its voters now must go to this new (as of 2017) polling place. In 2019 they extended Granite Falls Boulevard to cross Rogers Road and placed many overhead traffic signals at that intersection; that should make this turn much easier to find.
How to check your voter registration information: When certain changes occur, such as when Precinct 19-10 was divided into 19-18 and 19-19 or if you have updated your registration information with the Wake County Board of Elections (WCBOE), e.g., after a move, the WCBOE mails an updated voter card to each affected voter. That card lists your (possibly changed) polling place and your voting jurisdiction information, including your municipality, e.g., Wake Forest, Rolesville, or Unincorporated, as well as your name, residence address, and party affiliation. You can also see your current registration information, e.g., by clicking on "Voter Lookup" or "Am I Registered?" on the WCBOE website.
How to view a sample ballot appropriate for you: The "Am I Registered" facility mentioned above also lets you view images of the ballot(s) applicable to you in the upcoming election. These images are usually made available a month or more before the election. Each image exactly duplicates what you would see on the associated hardcopy ballot. Viewing your ballot before the election lets you vote more quickly on Election Day.
To view which ballot(s) may apply for you, enter your identification data for "Am I Registered" (see above). When your registration data is displayed, scroll down to the "Your Sample Ballot" section and click on the link for the ballot style you wish to view, e.g, N0009. If you see No eligible ballots instead of a ballot style, that means you are not eligible to vote in this election. For example, that will occur if this is a municipal election, but you don't live within the corporate limits of the municipality having the election. Updated: 9/30/21
The NCSBE seems to have fixed the bug in their "Practice making your selections" facility. It now displays an appropriate interactive practice ballot instead of displaying "No ballot found" or "Not eligible". Updated: 10/8/21
An Unaffiliated voter may see several possible ballot styles for a partisan primary election. All can be viewed here; however when actually voting later, the Unaffiliated voter must choose just one of these styles. In contrast, for partisan voters in a partisan primary election or for all voters in a general or municipal election, only one sample ballot style will be displayed for each voter.
Since the Constitution and Green parties did not receive sufficient votes in the 11/3/20 election, they are no longer registered political parties in North Carolina. They can petition to become registered again, but as of now information about them has been removed from the following description. Updated: 11/17/20
North Carolina now has three political parties: Democratic, Libertarian, and Republican. If you are registered as an affiliate of one of these parties, in a partisan primary election, you can vote only for contests of that party (assuming there are any such contests). You are also restricted to that party if there is a second primary (runoff) election. In contrast, an Unaffiliated voter can choose a party for the partisan primary election and can vote only for the contests of that party. If a second primary election is required; the Unaffiliated voter must stay with the party choice made for the primary. If no choice was made for the primary, the Unaffiliated voter can choose any party in the second primary. Updated: 11/17/20
How to update your voter registration information: If you haven't yet registered, you must do so by a specific date for the election in which you wish to vote; this deadline will be posted on the WCBOE website. Don't put it off to the last minute. If you have moved or changed your name after you previously registered, please notify the WCBOE to get your registration updated. Doing that early will make things go much faster and more smoothly for you on Election Day. All this registering and updating can be done with this form and instructions found on the WCBOE website under "Voter Info". Clicking on "Register To vote" or "Update my name" or "Update my address" or "Change my party affiliation" will all bring up the same form which you then complete, print, and mail. You can now also register or update your registration information thru the DMV Online Voter Registration portal. Once your first-time or updated registration has been processed, the WCBOE will mail you a new voter card. Updated: 9/16/21
Please wait at the Tabulator to see your ballot's status: Our new model Tabulator worked very well in the preceding elections. However there is one thing we want to emphasize to voters: After entering your ballot into the Tabulator slot, PLEASE WAIT the few seconds until the display shows whether the ballot was accepted or rejected. If you don't wait and just hurry out the door, we have to try to chase you down if the Tabulator has detected an error after you ran, e.g., if you marked too many entries in one or more contests.
If you select too many in a contest, until we bring you back to say how you want to proceed, no one else can cast their ballot. The voter line is held up until you are available to say whether you want the Tabulator to ignore the extra-marked contest(s) or instead have us give you a new ballot to fill out all over again. All this goes much faster if we don't have to chase you. If we can't catch you, we have no choice but to tell the Tabulator to ignore all the extra-marked contest(s) on your ballot so it can be read in, thus allowing the other (patiently waiting) voters to now cast their ballots.
Even worse, your ballot may be rejected by the Tabulator if you mismarked it using X's, or checkmarks, or smiley faces, or red ink, or something else, instead of just filling out the ovals with the supplied black ink pens, per the instructions. Such an invalid ballot can cause a real mess if you can't be chased down. Please just wait to see your ballot's status.
Special considerations for the 19-19 polling place: Below are several things 19-19 voters will need to consider about Sanford Creek Elementary School. The six WCBOE pictures illustrate some of these points.
If you enter Granite Falls Blvd. from Rogers Rd., the first school entrance you encounter (the one on the west side of the school property) is ONLY for school buses. We'll have signs warning people that this is NOT an entrance for voters. The correct entrance (the one on the east side) is about 1/4 mile further along. That drive goes up a steep hill and leads to a large parking area in front of the school.
Similarly, if you enter Granite Falls Blvd. from W. Young St., do not turn at the first road you encounter on the left. That leads to some private businesses, not the school. The school entrance is the second road on the left. There is a large stone sign by it for Sanford Creek Elementary School.
No matter when you arrive, always follow the signs and watch out for cones which may require you to wind around the parking area; don't try to take a shortcut. Be very careful if you use the narrow passing lane to go beside the "carpool" line.
If you do arrive at the wrong time, a way to avoid the "carpool" line is to use one of the two gravel parking lots adjacent to the school, just off Scarboro St. See the Alternate Parking Lot signs on the sign placement diagram. There is a small, grassy hill between the larger lot and the school. Since there is no sidewalk or other prepared pathway over that hill, walk carefully, especially if the grass is wet. These gravel lots are normally used for the Town of Rolesville's Main Street Park. The Town has given the WCBOE permission to use them for voter parking.
For people needing curbside or accessible parking facilities, it is strongly advised that they NOT come to vote anywhere close to the school's "carpool" times noted above. Navigating around the "carpool" line to reach the special parking areas can be confusing and difficult. At other times (i.e., no "carpool" line), it is much easier -- just follow the pavement arrows and our vote direction signs to get to the curbside or accessible parking areas.
Cars needing this special parking should go completely around the loop by the building's entrance. See the traffic flow and curbside/accessible diagrams. This ensures curbside-parking cars will be properly oriented at the curbside doorbell stand. This orientation also provides easy exit from curbside parking back into the "carpool" traffic flow.
Please pass on the above information to your neighbors. Bookmark this web page for future reference.
Try iMAPS if you want more detailed maps: The above modified WCBOE precinct map is at a high level and gives a good overview. However if anyone wants to dig REALLY deep (down to the lowest level) into things like voting precinct boundaries, municipal corporate boundaries, NC state senate and representative districts, flood plains, greenways, judicial districts, county commissioner districts, and dozens of other such regions, Wake County has a great, free, public tool called iMAPS.
Using the iMAPS Layers facility, you can display a map showing such regions as those listed above. You can zoom in or out, down to individual houses/lots or up to the whole county. You can display multiple layers simultaneously, e.g., how voting precincts and municipal corporate boundaries intersect (important for a municipal election). You can do searches and view property information, e.g., ownership, taxes, and deeds. You can blend street and aerial views. And much more -- this description just scratches the surface of what the tool can do. See iMAPS Usage: Voting Precincts vs. Municipal Corporate Boundaries for a step-by-step practical example.
Old news: Precinct 19-10 division done in 2017: Voting Precinct 19-10, which had used the Jones Dairy Elementary School as its polling place, grew large enough that it needed to be divided in two by the Wake County Board of Elections. (As of 2021 it would have had over 11,000 registered voters.) This division was done in 2017. Precinct 19-10 no longer exists. The part of old 19-10 north of Chalk Road is now the new 19-18 precinct; it still has Jones Dairy Elementary as its polling place. However all the rest of old 19-10 is now the new 19-19 precinct and has as its polling place Sanford Creek Elementary School at 701 Granite Falls Blvd. in Rolesville. See the Precinct 19-19 overview map; there are other maps and pictures in a section above. Updated: 10/1/21
History of Significant Changes
11/17/20: Reset change tags to initialize this file for the 11/2/2021 municipal election.