Hog Day, Early Voting Conflict Going to Orange County Commissioners

Orange County Commissioners are scheduled to meet in special session Tuesday night to discuss a potential conflict between early voting and Hog Day in Hillsborough.

Hog Day was canceled due to Hurricane Florence last month. When it came to picking a make-up date, the Hog Day organizers picked November 2 and 3.

The annual event, which is put on by the Orange County Optimist Club, takes over large portions of downtown Hillsborough. There are concerns from officials at the county Board of Elections that Hog Day will interfere with the last two days of early voting at the Board of Elections office.

“There hasn’t been any agreement reached with the organizers,” chair of the Board of Orange County Commissioners Mark Dorosin said in a recent interview. “They seem to be committed to these days. They’ve offered some accommodations to provide directions for people, so they can figure out how to get to the poll.

“And I certainly appreciate that, but I want to hear more from our Board of Elections about the potential impact.”

A letter from the four-member Orange County Board of Elections to the county commissioners expressed concern about the event interfering with early voting.

“We have observed that in the past that the Hog Day festival brings a very large number of people into the downtown area, requires blocking streets and re-routing traffic, generates high volumes of vehicular traffic, and makes parking scarce. Given that voting must take place at the OCBOE office on these days, we believe that the festival will cause confusion for voters, increase the amount of time required for voters to get into and out of the BOE office, and has the potential to dissuade some from casting their ballot. In addition, the congestion around the festival will make it that much more difficult for our election crews from other sites around the county to return ballots and equipment to the BOE office after the One Stop period closes and they shut down their satellite sites Saturday afternoon.”

The letter from the Board of Elections also notes that the last two days of early voting are typically the busiest days of the period.

“Access to the poll has been one of the defining issues in our state for the last eight years,” Dorosin said. “And, certainly, I don’t want to see us do anything that inhibits that.”

The chair of the commissioners added that this year’s election is expected to draw higher numbers of voters than other mid-term elections.

“This is an important election,” Dorosin said, “particularly for the state races, and we’ve got these amendments on the ballot. We’re expecting a higher-than-ordinary turnout for a mid-term election. And so there’s a lot of concern that it will not be possible to accommodate the event and also our desire to ensure access to early voting.”

Dorosin said it will fall to the commissioners to approve the permit for the organizers to use county grounds and facilities for early voting.

Tuesday’s special meeting of the Orange County Board of Commissioners to consider the request is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Whitted Building in Hillsborough.

Orange County Commissioners Meeting Over Hog Day, Early Voting Conflict

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