Mecklenburg County's top elections official says the county is ready for early voting, which opens Thursday, Oct. 15, at sites including Cornelius Town Hall.

Michael Dickerson, director of the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections for 28 years, said the bipartisan board reached a unanimous decision on voting sites for the Nov. 3 midterm elections despite initial disagreements. Democrats on the five-member board wanted more sites; Republicans wanted fewer.

"I have applauded my board for working it out," Dickerson said in an interview first reported by WFAE.

The board, which consists of three Republicans and two Democrats, voted unanimously on Tuesday, June 23, to set early voting locations. That vote closed Davidson Town Hall as an early voting site. North Mecklenburg voters will cast early ballots at Cornelius Town Hall instead, according to The Davidsonian.

Absentee ballots are already flowing. North Carolina was the first state to send mail-in ballots for the 2026 general election, starting Sept. 4. As of Oct. 1, the Mecklenburg board had sent about 12,000 absentee ballots, Dickerson said.

The board approved the first round of roughly 1,200 completed ballots on a Tuesday in October, spending four hours that evening examining each one. Board members will continue approving absentee ballots every Tuesday until Election Day.

Drop boxes are not permitted under North Carolina law. Completed absentee ballots must reach the county board of elections by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 3, according to WFAE.

Dickerson addressed voter concerns about machine security, saying voting machines in Mecklenburg County are not connected to the internet. Election data is stored on USB drives. The computers used to count results are also offline.

On Oct. 1, elections teams statewide conducted a "Mocktober" test on all voting machines to verify accuracy.

The board's composition shifted after the state legislature in 2024 stripped Gov. Josh Stein of the power to appoint elections board members and gave it to State Auditor Dave Boliek, a Republican. Boliek appointed Michael Peretz as chair of the Mecklenburg board, establishing a Republican majority.

On Sept. 4, the same day absentee ballots went out, the Republican-majority North Carolina State Board of Elections voted 3-2 along party lines to enact stricter rules for absentee and provisional ballots. Stein said on X that the changes amounted to "last-minute workarounds" that could prevent votes from counting.

Dickerson said he and his staff follow all state statutes and memos. Before joining the county, he spent 14 years at the Federal Election Commission.

In-person early voting runs through 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 31, at 370 sites statewide. In the 2024 general election, 74% of North Carolina voters cast ballots during the early voting period.