When the 19th Amendment passed in 1920, women throughout the nation began to vote for the first time. But for a long time, the rights granted in that amendment were realized mainly by white women. 

“Our ancestors, our forefathers, they were hurt because they had fought for suffrage too for the 19th Amendment, and it didn’t really do any good,” said Ellerna Forney, a Sylva native who is Black. “But they still kept fighting.”

In 1930, a young man named Henry Owl traveled to the Ravensford election precinct in Swain County to register to vote. 

Owl was a U.S. Army Veteran, and a college graduate. He held a master’s degree, in fact, having finished the UNC Chapel Hill graduate program in history the previous year. At Lenoir College, where he began his undergraduate studies in 1925, he was elected “Most Popular Boy” and competed as a star athlete in football and baseball, earning posthumous induction to the Lenoir-Rhyne Sports Hall of Fame in 2012. 

Students at Western Carolina University have helped hundreds of their fellow Catamounts register to vote in the 2020 election, and at the end of the day, they say it doesn’t matter whether they register to vote red or blue — just as long as they show up to cast a ballot. 

The elusive youth voter. Politicians want to know what they’re thinking, what issues motivate them and what it takes to actually get them to the polls on Election Day.

Attempting to reach the 18-29 age bracket of untapped voters continues to be a high priority for political campaigns yet it’s still the age bracket with the lowest rates of voter turnout historically. However, recent data does show youth voters are on the rise. 

Although voters approved a 2018 ballot measure requiring photo identification at North Carolina polls, voters won’t have to produce IDs during either the March 3 Primary Election or the Nov. 3 General Election. 

Legislation implementing North Carolina’s first-ever voter ID requirement passed both the House and the Senate Dec. 6, but a veto by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper had Republicans scrambling back to the legislative chambers to override it before their power to do so evaporated. 

Robust voter turnout and early voting enthusiasm made the difference in three Jackson County Board of Commissioners races, causing the board to flip from a Republican to a Democratic majority. 

North Carolinians will be asked this November to weigh in on the controversial issue of voter ID if a bill introduced June 7 by Rep. Michele Presnell, R-Burnsville, gains approval. 

As of 2 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 24, almost 4,300 Haywood County residents had already cast their vote in person at one of three area One Stop voting locations. 

As Jonathan Creek Road meanders south from Interstate 40 some 17 miles hence, it forms a “T” with Soco Road.  

There, at that busy three-way intersection linking Maggie Valley and Waynesville with the outside world, sat Doug Smith.