(The Center Square) – Twenty North Carolina counties without unanimous agreement on early voting plans by respective Boards of Election go before the State Board of Elections on Thursday.

The action is pursuant to state law when unanimity is not achieved.

The board meets at 9 a.m. in Raleigh.

The counties that differed only on dates or times are Union, Rowan, Anson, Craven, Rockingham, Greene, Wayne, Harnett, Lee, Nash, Chatham and Scotland.

Following a closed session, the board is expected to resume after lunch considering counties that differed on locations or both locations, dates or times. Those counties are Jackson, Pasquotank, Guilford, Pitt, Lenoir, Cumberland, Granville and Columbus.

All 20 plans are related to the in-person early voting period of Oct. 15-31. Election Day is Nov. 3, with polls open 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. statewide.

Voter registration deadline is 5 p.m. on Oct. 9. Voters can register the same day during the early in-person period.

Two weeks from Friday, absentee ballots go into the mail for any registered voter in the state in what opens the 60-day longest voting window in America. The last day to make a request for a ballot to be mailed is Oct. 20 at 5 p.m. All absentee ballots, per state law, must be returned by 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 3.

North Carolinians will choose a U.S. senator, all 14 members of the U.S. House, and all 170 members of the General Assembly. Local judges and district attorneys, sheriffs, county commissioners, education board members and in some jursidictions municipal elections are also on the second-longest ballot of the four-year rotation for North Carolinians.