Buncombe County Will Have 11 Early Voting Sites

The NC State Board of Elections held a special meeting Sunday, August 5, at Wake Forest Law School in Winston-Salem, to hear petitions from counties with disputed early voting plans.

At the meeting, the board voted 5-4 to overrule the Buncombe County Board of Elections (BCBOE), which had chosen a plan with 10 early voting sites, in favor of an alternative plan that reinstated the popular Wesley Grant Center.

Though a very popular voting site in 2016 and 2017, the Grant Center had been removed from the list of Early Voting locations in part because of the added expense of staffing 11 sites.

The state-approved plan includes both the Grant Center and the Bun-combe County Permits and Inspections building at 30 Valley Street, which is a popular and convenient location for residents of the East End and stadium area, the Block (which has many new residents in the recently opened Eagle-Market Place apartments), the MLK Boulevard corridor, as well as the lower slopes of Town Mountain.

The area served by the Grant Center includes two public housing communities, Livingston and Erskine-Walton, as well as nearby neighborhoods with high ratios of minority residents: Bartlett Street, S. French Broad Ave., and much of the Southside area. It also serves the River Arts District and is convenient to the A-B Tech campus, and is accessible by public transportation.

When told of the decision, Wilma Tompkins, sitting in front of the Bartlett Arms apartments, said, “It means a lot to me. I live across the street in Livingston. It will help people living in [this area] to vote. A lot will not vote because Valley Street is far away.”

A man interviewed on S. French Broad was elated. “People can ride in their wheelchairs or use crutches or walkers to vote at Wesley Grant,” he said. For area residents to vote on Valley Street, on the other hand, they would have to take a crosstown bus to Biltmore Avenue, change to the E-1 line, then get off at Pack Square and walk down a long, steep hill to reach the site. If he had to go to Valley Street, he added, “I would just forget about voting.”

While all four members of the Buncombe BOE agreed that Valley Street is also an important location, only one, former Democratic National Committee member Jake Quinn, pushed for the additional site to serve such a strongly African American, and underserved, population.

In support of the Quinn proposal, and addressing the BCBOE concerns about the cost of keeping 11 sites in use, a letter from Buncombe County Board of Commissioners Chairman Brownie Newman stated that the additional costs would be covered by the county.

Following the conclusion of its three-day conference on August 8, the State BOE formally announced its decision in support of 11 Buncombe County sites.