Elections 101: The Triad’s two election directors answer our questions about the voting process

Featured photo: On Sept. 30, TCB sat down with Charlie Collicutt and Tim Tsujii, the elections directors for Guilford and Forsyth counties, to talk about the elections process and get into the nitty gritty details. (photo by Brian Clarey)

On Sept. 30, TCB sat down with Charlie Collicutt and Tim Tsujii, the elections directors for Guilford and Forsyth counties, to talk about the elections process and get into the nitty gritty details. The conversation was recorded and can be watched on TCB‘s Facebook page here.

Early voting begins on Oct. 17 and ends on Nov. 2. Polls will be open from 6:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m. on Election Day — Nov. 5 and “If voters are in line at the time of closing, they still get to vote,” Tsujii noted. For more information, visit ncsbe.gov.

Election season is an incredibly hectic time for you. But what do you do for the rest of the year?

“The father-in-law question,” Collicutt chuckled. “The vast majority of what we do is manage the staff that does data entry on voter registration changes. It’s only when we get near election season do we do all these other things that everybody pays attention to. Maintain the voting systems, poll workers and all that.”

Tsujii explained that on a daily basis, they get anywhere from 100 or more new registration records that need to be filed into the system.

“I usually use the analogy of the Olympics,” he explained. “It takes four years to get the Olympic games ready and put together. They have to get all the volunteers, they have to find all the facilities, they have to do the logistics and paperwork that’s involved. With the Board of Elections Office, we’re no different…. The only difference is we don’t do it every four years, we actually have elections every year. So that prep work is on an annual basis.” 

Poll worker recruitment efforts are crucial, too, Collicutt added. “For this election, we’ll probably use somewhere in the range of 2,000 people just for early voting and Election Day. That is recruitment and retention and training”

What are the ways people can vote this year?

“Absentee by mail voting, in-person early voting and then voting in-person on Election Day,” said Tsujii. “With early voting, each county gets to select and determine how many sites they want to have open their 17-day early voting window. Voters are allowed to go to any of the early voting locations to cast their ballot, whereas on Election Day voters are required to vote at their designated precincts.” 

There’s more convenience that’s offered in in-person early voting compared to Election Day where voters have a 13-hour window to cast their ballots, Tsujii explained.

“The vast majority of voters now are casting ballots before Election Day,” Collicutt noted.

Can you explain NC’s voter photo ID requirement?

There are four requirements that the poll workers are going to be checking for when they’re verifying your photo ID according to Collicutt:

• What’s the expiration date? There are exceptions for people whose photo IDs expire after they turn 65, and if a voter’s photo ID has only been expired for a year or less. 
• Is it an acceptable form of ID? This can be an NC driver’s license, a passport or any other form of ID outlined by the new law. Certain student and military IDS are accepted as well. The local county boards of elections also offer a free voter ID. “Anybody, as long as you’re a registered voter, can request to get that free voter ID. Our office is open Monday through Friday 8-5,” said Tsujii.
• Does the picture reasonably resemble the person standing in front of them? “Notice I didn’t use the word perfect resemblance,” he added.
• Is the name substantially equivalent to the name in the voter registration? The address on the ID also doesn’t have to match what’s on the voter registration. 
• One thing to note is that voters who want to register during early voting, must also show proof of residency whether it’s a driver’s license or a bill with their current address. This is in addition to the voter ID requirement.

Can voters use an out of state ID?

“Yes, as long as the voter registered within 90 days from Election Day,” said Tsujii. But if you’ve been here longer than 90 days, you need to have gotten an NC one, added Collicutt.

After Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. dropped out of the race, the NC Supreme Court ordered a reprint of ballots. What’s the new timeline for absentee ballots being sent out? 

“Though we’re back on track, it was a lot to do in a more compressed schedule,” said Collicutt. “The people that were really early requesters, they’re delayed about 17 days.”

They take requests all the way up to Oct. 29. 

“I wouldn’t wait that long,” Collicutt added. Ballots have to make it back to their office by Nov. 5 at 7:30 p.m., whether it’s by mail or being handed in directly.

Any other changes compared to past elections?

You will notice a major change if you voted with an absentee ballot in 2020, Collicutt said. Now voters need two people to witness putting that ballot back in the envelope, rather than one. Absentee voters also have to provide a photocopy of one of the acceptable forms of ID, noted Tsujii. There’s an exception form you can fill out if your ID has been lost or stolen.

Is voter fraud an issue in Guilford and Forsyth counties?

“Tim and I have been doing this for a long time and I have not encountered in-person fraud,” Collicutt said. “I’m not saying that it doesn’t exist. What I’m saying is in the years that I’ve done it, I’ve not seen a poll worker ever report back to me, ‘Let me tell you about this funny thing that happened.’”

“In Forsyth County, we did have one,” Tsujii noted. “In 2022, prior to the voter ID requirement being implemented, a voter attempted to impersonate his son in casting an early voting ballot…We had that situation occur even before voter ID was implemented, so there’s plenty of safeguards that were already in place.”

“You’ve always had to say your name and address out loud in a roomful of people,” said Collicutt. Tsujii added, “The voter ID requirement only helps and enhances the safeguards that we have to protect our elections.”

Western NC has been devastated by Hurricane Helene. How might elections be affected there?

“We’ve already been affected because of the hurricane,” Tsujii said. “There’s a local post office in Belews Creek that had to close. Just imagine the other local post offices on the western part of the state; if any of our voters are out that way and are planning to cast an absentee ballot, that might potentially affect them.”

When do you actually start counting ballots?

In NC, county boards of elections can go ahead and preprocess absentee ballots that they receive, Tsujii said, adding that in some other states, they’re not allowed to process ballots until Election Day. 

Results from absentee-by-mail ballots should be posted online around “7:31-ish” p.m. on Election Day, said Collicutt. Early voting results will be uploaded “closer to 8:30.” For votes cast on Election Day, results from those precincts have to be transported to each election’s office and might go up a bit past 8:30, others closer to 10 or 10:30 p.m..

“You’ve got precincts out in rural regions of your county,” Tsujii said. “It takes them longer to get to downtown Winston-Salem.”

How has your job changed over the last couple of years as elections have come under more scrutiny?

“I think now I spend more time in my day talking to individual citizens about things that maybe are relevant to other states, other pieces of equipment that we don’t have or processes that they don’t quite understand,” Collicutt said. Sometimes people “don’t understand the process and are accusing us of wrongdoing; purposely or accidental in how we’re going to do our jobs,” he added.

It’s a lot of work against “mis, dis and malinformation,” said Tsujii, adding that with the prominence of social media and the 24/7 news cycle, their role now includes putting out as much information as they can to “debunk or even prebunk” some of that incorrect information.

Tsujii said, “I feel like we’ve taken on more of a public relations role than focusing on elections.” He said that his office uses social media to help get the word out, and keep the website up to date with information that is easily accessible to voters. 

When angry people accuse precinct officials of nefarious behavior, Collicutt wants to remind them that those workers are often “grandmas.”

“These are your neighbors,” Collicutt said. Tsujii agreed.

“Especially at the precinct level, a lot of the poll workers are neighbors and friends of the voters that are coming in,” he said.

What do you debunk the most about elections? 

Election security, ballot security, how ballots are counted, Tsujii said. The voting equipment is tested before the election and they do a recount of two randomly selected precedents after the election, so there’s pre-election and post-election testing. While people may have concerns about election fraud, Collicutt and Tsujii welcome people to volunteer or work as poll staff to see what’s really going on.

“That’s truly the best way to see first-hand the inner workings of an election and the voting process,” said Tsujii.

“People think that we and poll workers have much more power and abilities to do things than we really do,” Collicutt added. 

Imagine you’re king for a day and change whatever you want. What would you alter about elections?

People want flexibility, Collicutt said. For him, making early voting sites available through Election Day would make things easier for voters.

“I would love to have places where anybody can just go,” he said. Sometimes people will show up to early voting sites on Election Day anyway, so why not just keep the continuity? “It extends that level of convenience into Election Day,” Tsujii agreed.

Collicutt also said that due to some people being isolated, he would change the rules about the number of witnesses voters have to have when voting by mail.

What is your favorite part of your job?

“I don’t think any two days are alike, there’s always something new and different that comes up in our work on a daily basis,” Tsujii said. “That adds to the excitement and energy.” 

“Our stress level goes up to an 11 for sure for a big chunk of the year,” Collicutt added. “But then it drops down really low and it’s kind of nice. We have these opportunities to focus on professional development or take vacation or be with our families. It makes those times when we’re not that busy a lot better.”

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