MANTEO, N.C. — Outer Banks voters lined up Thursday as Dare County kicked off its early window for the Nov. 3 general election, bringing local races and several tax questions onto the same ballot.
Three county sites will take ballots through Saturday, Oct. 31: the administration building in Manteo, town hall in Kill Devil Hills and the Fessenden Center annex in Buxton. Staff plan weekday hours from 8 in the morning until 7:30 at night, then a shorter final Saturday, 8 a.m. until midafternoon at 3, with Sundays closed.
During the early stretch, residents may use any Dare site rather than their Election Day precinct. Hatteras Island voters can stay with the Buxton annex for the whole early period. Ocracoke Island gets only two local early days, Oct. 22 and 23, at the volunteer fire station.
Board of Elections Director Kelly McPherson said people who missed the Oct. 9 registration cutoff can still sign up and vote in one visit if they show photo ID plus proof of a current address. Free photo IDs remain available at the elections office through the end of early voting. Absentee requests close Oct. 20.
Statewide, the ballot asks voters to weigh three constitutional amendments: expanding photo-ID rules to cover every form of voting, cutting the state income-tax ceiling, and ordering the legislature to cap how fast local property-tax levies can rise. Dare County alone also faces a separate question on adding a quarter-cent local sales tax aimed at parks and recreation projects.
County planners say that local tax bump would move the rate from 6.75 percent to 7 percent and bring in roughly $6.1 million a year toward a $56.9 million parks capital list that includes upgrades at the Fessenden Center. They expect visitors to supply more than 70 percent of the new money, and they would leave groceries, gas, cars and prescriptions out of the added levy.
Sample ballots are posted by precinct group. Election Day is still Nov. 3, but anyone hoping to avoid that crush still has more than two weeks of early options at the three Dare sites.
Section: More Outer Banks NC politics news
