Could Wake County voters cast their ballots at PNC Arena this fall?
Coronavirus is changing plenty about voting in the 2020 presidential elections. For people who live in Wake County, that might even mean going to vote at a sports stadium.
Local election officials are in talks with PNC Arena leaders about using the arena — home to the Carolina Hurricanes, N.C. State men’s basketball and plenty of big concerts — as a backup site for early voting, in case one or more of the county’s regular early voting sites has to be shut down due to COVID-19.
“No matter what, we can’t not be prepared,” Gary Sims, Wake County’s elections director, said on Thursday, shortly after some of his staffers toured the arena to see how feasible it would be as a polling place. He said they’re planning to have several potential backup sites this year.
Jeff Merritt is in charge of the Centennial Authority group, which runs PNC Arena. He said that with so many events being canceled in 2020, the arena is in a unique position to help out with the elections if needed.
“We have plenty of parking, and message boards to help direct people,” Merritt said, joking that maybe they’d even look into opening up some of the concession stands, too.
No deal with PNC Arena has been finalized yet. If it does happen, the plan for use of the arena as a backup would be different from a plan in Charlotte for several event venues to be used as regular early voting sites.
Mecklenburg County has already approved early voting sites at the Bank of America Stadium, where the Carolina Panthers play football; the Spectrum Center, where the Charlotte Hornets play basketball; and Bojangles Coliseum.
No extra Triangle early voting sites?
Recently the N.C. State Board of Elections issued a new rule requiring counties to have at least one polling place for every 20,000 voters.
Republican lawmakers cried foul. They said it would make voting access easier in urban areas, which tend to lean liberal, but not necessarily in rural areas, which tend to lean conservative.
But in the heavily Democratic Triangle, it’s not certain that rule will lead to any additional polling places during early voting.
Early voting this year will last from Oct. 15-31. Lists of early voting sites in places like Wake, Durham and Orange counties are available online at the counties’ elections websites.
Durham County Elections Director Derek Bowens and Orange County Elections Director Rachel Raper both said their counties had more than enough early voting locations to meet the new rule, even before the rule existed.
Bowens said the new rule would’ve required Durham to have 12 early voting sites, “and we have 14 already.”
And in Wake County, which has 20 early voting sites — but which public records show would be required to have 39 sites under the new rule — Sims said leaders have decided to ask the state for a waiver. If granted, that would let them stick with the planned 20 sites despite the requirement.
The rule did allow for waivers for counties that can prove they’re doing enough to make voting accessible during coronavirus.
Sims said he and other Wake County leaders believe they have addressed all the concerns Karen Brinson Bell, the state’s elections director, laid out when issuing that new rule. That’s in addition to the budget and logistical difficulties of doubling the number of early voting sites, with the county having to find and pay many extra people willing to work the polls during a pandemic.
“I don’t want to say it was just cost and poll workers,” Sims said. “We had already tackled what her concerns were.”
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