Mail-in absentee request deadline passing in North Carolina

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The options to vote in North Carolina are dwindling as Election Day nears.

Voters who wanted to cast a traditional mail-in absentee ballot had until 5 p.m. Tuesday to request one through their county board or online through a state portal.

Voters who complete the received ballots, placed within a special envelope, must turn them in to their county board by Nov. 3 or have them postmarked by the same date.

More than 1.4 million absentee ballots have been requested for this election, according to the State Board of Elections. Over 811,000 of those ballots have been returned and accepted — a rate seven times the total received at this time during the 2016 election. That spike is attributed in large part to health concerns about voting in person during the COVID-19 pandemic.

People who didn’t apply in time for a mail-in ballot can still vote on Election Day and at early in-person voting sites in all 100 counties through Saturday afternoon. Early voting centers also allow people to register to vote and cast a ballot at the same time.

Nearly 3.5 million people in North Carolina had voted in advance of Election Day as of Tuesday afternoon, state elections board data shows.