Information Mainly for Precinct 19-19 Voters

Last Updated:   2/16/24  15:47         Jeffrey Knauth        jeff@jgkhome.name

Upcoming election:  The next election for Precinct 19-19 will be a partisan primary election on 3/5/24. Your party affiliation matters in a partisan primary election vs in a municipal or general election. Your recorded party affiliation is part of the registration information you can view, as described in Getting registration and ballot information. Updated: 11/11/23

To vote normally in this election you must present a photo ID, e.g., an NC driver license. See photo ID for the eligible types of ID, associated expiration dates, exceptions, and other photo ID information. If you are voting in-person at an early voting site or at the polling place on Election Day, don't forget to bring your photo ID into the voting enclosure.

Consider becoming a precinct official.

Know your precinct and polling place:  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. The Election Day polling place for Precinct 19-19 is Sanford Creek Elementary School at 701 Granite Falls Blvd. in Rolesville. See below for maps and pictures.

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.

The closest early voting site to our area is the Wake County Northern Regional Center in Wake Forest.
Updated: 1/11/24

Do not wait until the last minute to request and then mail in an absentee ballot. If the ballot is received too late, e.g., because of USPS processing delays, the ballot will not be counted.

If you request an absentee ballot and have signed up with BallotTrax (see below for how to access it), BallotTrax will send you reports so you can track the progress of your request and then the ballot thru the system. BallotTrax will first report receipt of your absentee ballot request by the WCBOE and then report the mailing of the ballot package to you by the WCBOE. When you have completed the ballot package and mailed it back to the WCBOE, USPS will notify BallotTrax that it now has the package. BallotTrax will then report to you that USPS has the package and it is on the way to the WCBOE, then report when the package has arrived at the WCBOE, and finally report when the ballot has been accepted, i.e., you have now voted. If the WCBOE detects some problem with your ballot request or the information you returned with the ballot, e.g., a missing signature, the WCBOE will try to contact you. BallotTrax can be accessed thru the "Voter Lookup" link on the WCBOE home page. Updated: 2/16/24

Maps and pictures: The items in this section focus on Precinct 19-19.

For those voters using Rogers Road to get to Granite Falls Boulevard, note the SIX overhead traffic lights at that intersection. The turn is now hard to miss.

• Precinct 19-19 overview, an edited map from the WCBOE showing how Precinct 19-19 relates to surrounding precincts. It also shows the 19-19 and other nearby polling place locations.
• Locator map for the 19-19 polling place, Sanford Creek Elementary School (SCES).
• Helpful pictures of Sanford Creek Elementary School. These were provided by the WCBOE.
• Sign placement to direct people to the 19-19 polling place.
• Traffic flow diagram for Sanford Creek Elementary School parking areas.
• Diagram for curbside and accessible parking areas in front of the voting enclosure.
• Diagram for curbside and accessible parking areas with comments and larger sign images.
• Voting enclosure layout (normal) for an expected normal turnout on Election Day.
• Voting enclosure layout (small) for an expected light turnout on Election Day.
• Intersection of regions showing how voting precincts and municipal corporate regions overlap.
• Find Your Legislators is a North Carolina General Assembly tool which displays voting jurisdictions such as US House, NC Senate, and NC House districts. You can zoom down to a street address to see boundaries at a very detailed level across the whole state.

How to check your voter registration information:  When certain changes occur, such as when a redistricting changes the jurisdictional areas you are in 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 (possibly changed) 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 see your current registration information online by clicking on "Voter Lookup" near the top of the WCBOE home page. This links to the "Voter Search" page provided by the NC State BOE (NCSBE). The WCBOE website has a number of other paths to get to the NCSBE "Voter Search" page. In the following I'll just use "Voter Lookup" to cover all such paths.

How to view a sample ballot appropriate for you:  The "Voter Lookup" 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 in "Voter Lookup". 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. It can also occur if this is a partisan primary election, but your party has no contests in this election.

For a general election or a municipal election, party affiliations are ignored. They do matter in partisan primary elections.

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.

North Carolina has a number of political parties, i.e., those recognized by the NC State Board of Elections as able to have candidates in an election. Which parties are currently recognized changes often, but is significant only for partisan elections. 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 a "second primary" election is required because the primary election left some contests undecided.

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. After the second primary election (or after the primary election if no second primary was required), the Unaffiliated voter's party choice is reset so the voter can now again choose any party in the next partisan election.

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 the form and instructions found on the WCBOE website under "Voter Information". You use exactly the same form to do any of these:  register to vote, update your name, change your address, or change your party affiliation. Data can and probably should be entered into the online form to reduce misreads of handwritten information. Then print the form, sign it, and mail it. 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.

Instead of mailing a registration form, unregistered voters can register at an early voting site. Also, at those sites currently registered voters can make some changes, e.g., you can change your registered name and your residence address. However you CANNOT change your party affiliation there because it is too close to an election. Updated: 2/16/24

Wait at the Tabulator to see your ballot's status:  Our current model Tabulator has worked very well since being introduced in 2019. However there is one thing we want to emphasize to voters: After firmly sliding your ballot into the Tabulator slot, PLEASE WAIT the few seconds it takes 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.

• Use the correct entrance driveway to get to the voter parking area. See the 19-19 polling place map.

  If you enter Granite Falls Blvd. from Rogers Rd., the first school entrance driveway 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 driveway (the one on the east side) is about 1/4 mile further along.

  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. We'll have signs warning people that this is NOT an entrance for voters. The school entrance driveway is the second road on the left, just around the bend.

  At the entrance driveway there is a large stone sign saying "701 Sanford Creek Elementary School". There is also a round sign showing a cartoon bluejay, the SCES mascot. The driveway goes up a steep hill and leads to a large parking area in front of the school, which is not visible from Granite Falls Blvd.

• Unfortunately the correct entrance driveway is the one used by "carpool" parents to drop off and pick up their kids. If you try to drive in at certain times, you may find yourself involved with a long, slow line of such cars; this may make it difficult to get into or out of a parking place. Try to avoid the "carpool" times. The latest information from the school for this Election Day is listed below.
  Election Day, 3/5/24, will be a teacher workday at Sanford Creek Elementary School. Therefore there will be no  carpool  lines for voters to avoid in this election. Note, however, this may not apply for other elections. Always check here for each election.  Updated: 1/17/24.

  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.

• The voting enclosure (the room where you vote) is the school's Media Center. The entrance for it is on the left side of the building's front, hiding around a corner. Don't try to use the building's main entrance, which is toward the right. We'll have signs to steer you to the Media Center entrance.
• For exit from the Media Center, use only the door that you used for entry. Do not try to exit by the rear door into the main school building. We'll probably have that inside door partially blocked in some way -- to be used only as an emergency exit.

Instructions for Curbside and Accessible Parking

For those needing curbside assistance, i.e., people physically unable to come inside to vote, the curbside parking area will be at the building's front, near the Media Center entrance. See the links below. The accessible parking area is there as well. These parking places may not be too visible when you first enter the school's parking lot (there's a lot of winding around to get there), but we'll have signs.

Cars needing curbside parking should go completely around the loop by the building's entrance. See the traffic flow and curbside and accessible parking 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.

For people needing curbside or accessible parking facilities, it is strongly advised that they NOT come to vote 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 direction signs to get to the curbside or accessible parking areas.

This handout repeats much of the above curbside considerations. It also includes a diagram to emphasize the "go around the loop" path that should be taken to enter the curbside area. We intend to give this handout to each curbside voter in case they have not seen the information elsewhere. This should help in future elections.
 Updated: 1/12/24

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