Polling closed on Tuesday with the Pullen Community Center reporting 1045 ballots cast, fewer than each of the last three days at the Talley Student Union early voting site.
This midterm election ballot total is less than that of the the 2016 presidential election at Talley, which saw over 1800 ballots cast.
Election day in Wake County saw bad weather, including high humidity. WRAL reported that Gary Sims, Wake County elections director, said this humidity can affect the voting tabulators.
“The machines are actually very sensitive devices,” Sims said. “If moisture hits the ballots, basically that causes the tabulators to say, ‘hey, I don’t like this, and you need to do something else.'”
According to Rob Simmons, an election judge at the Pullen Community Center, the voting site had similar issues but quickly resolved them. He said that the humidity can cause the tabulators’ ballot rollers to lose traction and jam.
“We had a couple of ballot jams early on, and we turned on all these fans, and then we didn’t have any more,” Simmons said. “We definitely were aware of the problem both within our precinct and elsewhere. Here we were able to take care of it.”
Additionally, Simmons said that he did not think the weather had a significantly negative impact on turnout.
“We expect our biggest turnout at the very beginning of the day and the very end of the day,” Simmons said. “It wasn’t raining during either of those times, and we had a pretty big turnout at the beginning of the day and the end of the day.”
Kate Butler, a second-year studying psychology and first-time voter, said she was especially impassioned about voting.
“I want to change how things are going…with Trump in office,” Butler said. “The amendments and bonds were particularly important, and I want to get more Democrats in office. It was my first time voting and it was very empowering, more than I expected.”
In addition to twenty individual races, the ballot included options to vote on amendments and bonds specific to North Carolina.
Allegra Collins, candidate for the third seat in the NC Court of Appeals, was out campaigning at the Pullen voting center. She said she hopes to see an increase in the amount of younger voters.
“I’d love to see more young voters out,” Collins said. “I wonder if the use of social media in campaigns – obviously we’ve had it before, but it continues to grow – I wonder if that does have the positive effect of getting information out there to younger voters who are on social media.”
Some students hold voting in high regard, such as Samantha Shober, a fourth-year studying business technology and first-time voter.
“Everybody’s saying that it’s super important, and I don’t want to be someone that just constantly ignores the issues,” Shober said.
Young voters have historically not turned out as much as older generations. Isabella Sanchez, a fourth-year studying nutrition science, said this was very disappointing.
“I think it’s pretty sad,” Sanchez said. “It’s definitely something that needs to change, because we’re the ones that are going to be affected by the laws that [the legislature] puts into place.”
Amber Detwiler contributed to the reporting.
