On Tuesday night, voters in Western North Carolina gathered in Sylva to ask a bi-partisan panel questions about the upcoming midterm elections. The event was part of the Trusted Elections Tour, organized by The North Carolina Network for Fair, Safe, & Secure Elections.
Jackson County Board of Elections Director Amanda Allen, along with Board of Elections members Roy Osborn, a Democrat, and Jay Pavey, a Republican, answered audience questions about voter registration, artificial intelligence and voting by mail. Political scientist Chris Cooper, a professor at Western Carolina University and co-host of Purple Primer, moderated the town-hall style event which featured anonymous questions submitted by audience members.
During the evening, some questions stood out as key issues in the midterm elections:
Q: Why is everyone so worried about my voter registration?
“I think they’re worried because it’s the first step to actually casting that vote. So, in every state except North Dakota, you have to actually register to vote before you can cast that vote,” Cooper told NC Local.
Across the country, Tuesday was National Voter Registration Day, a nonpartisan civic holiday dedicated to encouraging voter participation in the election process, according to the State Board of Elections.
There is still time for eligible individuals to register to vote for the Nov. 3 general election.
Voter rights organizations often focus efforts on registration because it is the first hurdle to casting a ballot.
“Registering to vote in North Carolina is easy and fast, and eligible voters have a few different options for how to accomplish this,” Sam Hayes, executive director of the State Board of Elections, said in a press release. “We encourage North Carolinians who are eligible to consider registration so that they can exercise their civic duty in upcoming elections.”
During the event, Allen reminded voters that they might receive mail and text messages from outside organizations with outdated information about their voter registration – or lack thereof.
In July, Hayes said bulk mailers with inaccurate registration information caused confusion for some voters.
“Bulk voter registration mailings, when done carelessly, can do more harm than good,” he said in a statement. “They can confuse voters and greatly increase the workload of county boards of elections. State Board staff are available to advise anyone who wishes to send voter registration mailings so that we can minimize potential issues.”
To check your voter registration, enter your information online or call your local board.
The voter registration deadline for the 2026 general election is 5 p.m. on October 9.
Q: What are your concerns about the impact of articial intelligence (AI) on the election process?
Cooper noted how the issue of AI is one that hasn’t surfaced in the Trusted Elections work in the past.
Osborn said the threat of AI influencing an election is low because AI wouldn’t be able to complete any human interactions required by the election process.
“I would say they would have a great deal of difficulty getting through the hoops where you need some kind of a personal interaction with the voting personnel, for example, the staff or even a board member…someone would notice something was amiss,” Obsborn said.
The voting registration process verifies identification numbers, birth dates, and name spelling, Allen said.
“There are a lot of places where that would stumble in the same way with the actual voting process. My AI fears are more around misinformation,” she said.
Because voting machines aren’t connected to the internet or any AI application, it would be almost impossible for AI to impact the votes cast on Election Day, Cooper told NC Local.
“When it’s just the sanctity of the process, I feel really good about it,” he said. “The part that concerns me a little more about AI is the information people get on the front end, right? If people are learning about the candidates, learning about the issues, if AI is guiding that, I think that’s probably where folks’ concern should be, not about the sanctity of the actual ballot process.”
We took our Purple Primer phone to the event and asked attendees what other questions they have about the elections process. Here’s what they said:
“How has polarization across the country affected election officials’ jobs in recent years?” -Zion Mathis
Local election boards have representation from both major political parties.
Poll workers and local boards of election staff have sworn to be nonpartisan, Cooper said.
“Polarization has definitely made the job of election administrators worse,” he said. “It’s made it harder, and it’s also led to more turnover.”
The process is “incredibly nonpartisan,” he said, noting how any activity with a partisan board member must have someone from the other party also involved.
“With everything going on with the post office, should we discourage people from voting by mail?” -Nilofer Couture
“I don’t think we should be discouraging people from voting by mail, but I do think that folks should think about timing. Like if you mail it right before the deadline, yeah, the odds of it getting there are significantly lower,” Cooper said.
There are four ways to return your absentee ballot: by mail, by commercial courier service like UPS, in person at your county board of elections office or in person at an open early voting site in your county.
Beginning 30 days before the election, voters can track their absentee ballots using BallotTrax.
Postmarks do not matter. Ballots must be received at your county board of elections office by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day.
“The most frequent question we get is, ‘Am I registered to vote and how can I check that?'” -Amanda Allen, Jackson County Board of Elections Director
Find out if you are registered to vote (and other details) by checking the NC Board of Elections voter lookup tool.
If you need to update your registration, take action before October 9th.
If you miss the deadline, you can still update your information during early voting (except for party registration).
“What I want to know is if something happens to the paper ballots, what kind of back-up is available? How are those ballots counted then?” – Jennifer Roberts, former mayor of Charlotte and senior advisor for North Carolina Network for Fair, Safe, and Secure Elections
North Carolina’s election system has redundancies built in, Cooper said. Election machines are the primary way ballots are counted, creating a digital record of all ballots saved to the machine.
Republican Jackson County Board of Election member Jay Pavey also reminded the audience that the NC State Board of Elections does a random audit after each election.
“So what happens is we go in there and we pull all the paper ballots and we check every one of them against what the totals were to see if there were any mistakes and we’ve come back perfect every time,” Pavey said, referring to his time on the board. “I can’t speak for other states, but I can certainly speak for the state of North Carolina. The process we do is really, really good.”
Look for the answers on the next edition of Purple Primer!
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