Election Day updates: Buncombe County surpasses 100K voters for midterms

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828NewsNow.com) — After having nearly 97,000 voters participate in early voting for the 2026 midterms, it didn’t take long for Buncombe County to surpass the 100,000 mark for number of total voters so far.

The county said in a news release that by 10 a.m. on Election Day, the county had seen 7,596 votes cast. That puts the total number of voters in the county at 104,434, with 9 1/2 hours left. Polls will close today at 7:30 p.m. The county said anyone in line by 7:30 p.m. will still get to vote.

Among Buncombe County’s 80 polling sites, Alexander Baptist Church has experienced the highest voter turnout with 200 people, followed by Pole Creek Baptist Church and Avery’s Creek Community Center with 191 and 176 voters, respectively, the county said in the release.

“I’d like to thank the hundreds of people that have put in work to get this election up and running. From our dedicated Board to our talented Election Services staff and the 475 amazing poll workers that spend the entire day at their precincts, it really is a logistical feat to have all of this come together. We’re off to a great start, and I’m grateful for everyone’s contribution to this process,” said Elections Services Director Corinne Duncan in the release.

Poll workers in the Northern part of the county at West Buncombe Elementary School and at Erwin High School told 828NewsNow that they were seeing a slow, steady trickle of voters. Each polling site is staffed by a bipartisan leadership team consisting of one chief judge and two party-judges, along with additional trained poll workers.

At Erwin High, Melissa Taylor was one of the judges and said everything had been running smoothly.

“There’ve been no issues and no problems. It’s been pretty smooth so far,” she said.

Like all the other sites in the county, Erwin High’s polling site started up at 6:30 a.m.

“We’ve seen a pretty steady flow of voters ever since we started early this morning,” Taylor said.

Taylor, who has been working at polling sites for over 20 years, also said the voting machines have been working properly.

“The machines have been very sensitive. If voters are marking outside their bubble, the machines are kicking them back and asking them if they want to cast the vote as it is or redo it,” she said.

The county said it will release two more voting totals during the day at 2:30 p.m. and then again at 4:30 p.m. before releasing the total number of voters later in the night.