News

Early voting begins amid congestion and confusion

Gale Holm, of Hendersonville, voted Thursday during the first day of early voting at the Board of Elections.

By Amy McCraw, Published: October 17, 2024

Changes to early voting in Henderson County created traffic congestion and left some voters feeling confused Thursday as the first day of voting got underway.

“That is going to cause some headache,” Elections Specialist Aaron Troutman said of the new traffic pattern going into the early voting site at the Board of Elections.
Traffic going to the voting location is required to turn right off of Old Spartanburg Highway into the Board of Elections. Drivers are not allowed to enter the location from Spartanburg Highway.
A section of Spartanburg Highway on Thursday was narrowed to one lane for drivers heading toward the voting location from East Flat Rock. Drivers heading in that direction on Thursday afternoon found bumper to bumper traffic from the highway’s intersection with Brooklyn Avenue to the Board of Elections at the intersection with Old Spartanburg Highway.
Traffic also backed up along Old Spartanburg Highway as drivers entered the O’Reilly Auto Parts parking lot. Voters parked at the business and were shuttled to the Board of Elections next door.
Troutman said the change in traffic pattern was made to prevent drivers from attempting to turn left at the voting site.
“We’ve seen so many accidents from people trying to turn left,” he said. “We wanted to eliminate anyone turning left.”
Some voters said they found the new route confusing.
Gale Holm, 66, of Hendersonville, said she reached the voting site only after making two attempts.
“It was not well marked,” she said.
But Holm said she did not wait long to vote once she arrived.
She said she wanted to vote on the first day of early voting “just because I feel that strongly about who is running our country and who is running our town and state.”
Holm said she votes blue.
Elections officials this year also decided to reduce the number of early voting sites in the county from four to the one location at the Board of Elections.
Lou and Angela Nettina, of Hendersonville, said they did not know about the location change until they went to vote on Thursday.
“We promptly went to the wrong place in Fletcher,” 69-year-old Lou said with a smile. “We just assumed it was going to be in the same place.”
The couple searched the internet for more information after they found the parking lot of their old voting location empty.
They eventually found their way to the Board of Elections where they both said they voted for Donald Trump for president.
Angela, 64, said they did not have to wait once they got inside the voting site. The traffic was also manageable, she said.
“It looked worse than it was,” she said.
By 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, 1,800 people had cast their ballots at the early voting location, Troutman said.
Many people came early in the morning to vote and the site remained busy much of the day.
Elections workers encountered no major problems or delays for voters, Troutman said.
“There is not a wait. A lot of people are expecting to have a wait and there’s not one.”
Clay Eddleman, the chairman of the county’s Board of Elections, discussed both the reduction of early voting locations and the new traffic pattern with County Commissioners during their meeting on Wednesday.
He said the elections board found that early voting sites other than the one at the Board of Elections were underutilized.
“We took a look at these. People were traveling by the existing early voting site and voting at the Board of Elections,” he said.
Eddleman said some locations only had one voter come in during the day. Some sites also did not have adequate facilities for workers.
At a recent Board of Elections meeting one member made a motion to reconsider the plan to have only one early voting site. But that person withdrew the motion and the person who seconded the motion also withdrew after learning more about the reasons to have only one site, Eddleman said.
The decision to limit the early voting sites to one location saved the county $85,000, he said.
The early voting location at the Board of Election has 16 voter check-in stations, 58 voting machines, four tabulators and numerous elections workers to assist voters.
During the primary, the voting location at the Board of Elections was the busiest and most efficient site in the state, Eddleman said.

Representatives from both political parties slammed the decision to reduce the number of early voting sites.

Bruce Macdonald, an attorney for Henderson County’s Democratic Party, on Thursday questioned why the local board would reduce voting sites and change the traffic pattern for this election.
“With a historic get-out-the-vote effort underway by the Henderson County Democratic Party, and I'm sure by the Republican Party as well, I find it mind boggling that early-voting sites have been reduced from four to one,” Macdonald said in an email. “At a time when voter suppression is often subtle, but many times not so subtle, and with an upcoming election that is more consequential than perhaps any we have seen, it is hard to understand why the Henderson County Board of Elections made this decision. And it is harder to understand why the vote was unanimous. The fact that the decision might have saved the County $85,000 is not sufficient justification. With a county this large and a population of 119,000, you maintain or increase - not eliminate - early-voting sites.”
Information from the state Board of Elections shows that some counties in Western North Carolina smaller than Henderson have multiple early voting sites, MacDonald said.
Transylvania, Madison and Haywood counties each have three early voting sites. Jackson County has five early voting sites. Other counties in WNC that have only one site have much smaller populations that Henderson County, Macdonald said.
“By all accounts, the staff of the Board of Elections does an admirable job under difficult circumstances. My issue is not with them, but with the board members who made this inexplicable change,” Macdonald said.

A press release from the Republican National Committee blamed the decision to reduce the number of early voting sites in Henderson County during its ongoing recovery from the recent disaster in Western North Carolina on Democrats.

Early voting hours are 8 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19, and 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2.