Early voting is underway and many people are seeing a dizzying number of names on their ballots. There are 15 Democrats on North Carolina's ballots and 16 candidates for Libertarian voters to consider.
That led to a question from listener Yvonne Truhon: “Who decides in what order candidates are listed on our ballot?”
In this edition of Carolina Curious, we find the answer.
Let's start by looking at the Democratic primary. Alphabetically, the list should start with former candidate Michael Bennet.
But it doesn't. Tim Tsujii, director of Forsyth County's elections, explains why.
“So in even-numbered-year elections, the state board of elections, by law, they are required to randomly select the letter that the candidates' names will start [with], and so for this election, they drew the letter ‘O,'” he says.
That mean