Election workers, volunteers work to protect and promote the right to vote in NC on Election Day

For Ren Pridgeon, 72, working on Election Day is a five-decade tradition.

“I have never missed an election,” said Pridgeon with a broad smile. “I worked my first election when I was 22 years old.”

Pridgeon was serving as a poll worker Tuesday outside of John Chavis Community Center in southeast Raleigh.

Pridgeon can recall voting for Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential electon, but is now more concerned with voter education.

“I see the importance of it — making people aware of what they’re voting for,” said Pridgeon. “Of course, I don’t tell anyone who to vote for.”

Pridgeon tells those disinterested in politics that the failure to cast a ballot is the same as giving your vote to a candidate or a policy you dislike.

“A lot of people complain, ‘My child has lost her free lunch or they may reduce social security or cut this and that,’” said Pridgeon. “My first question is ‘Did you vote? No?’ The conversation is over.”

Pridgeon said he also wants younger voters to understand that it’s not just the candidates at the top of the ticket they need to pay attention to. Judicial contests may not garner much attention, but may have a larger impact on an individual’s life.

“Hopefully, you won’t get tied up in the legal system,” Pridgeon said. “But if you do, you want a judge who is at least going to listen, and perhaps feel what you’re feeling before they make their decision.”

As the 2026 midterms wind down, Pridgeon said he thinks a lot about his children and grandchildren and the future that he hopes they will have.

“When I go into the booth, I vote my heart because I do my homework and check out platforms not only from Democrats but from Republicans,” he said. “That’s the thing I like about Election Day itself. In the primaries, you have to vote [what’s best] for your party, but on Election Day, you vote your heart.”

After five decades of working the polls, Pridgeon isn’t quite ready to give it up. He plans to volunteer again for 2028.

Having faith in democracy

At Pullen Park Community Center, the Rev. Suzanne Parker Miller was spending Election Day serving as a poll chaplain for Faith United to Save Democracy. The nonpartisan, multi-faith organization is focused on voter protection campaigns in North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

“I’m here as a peacekeeper, as a poll observer, a clergy person, to be able to just make sure that people are having the chance to vote,” said Parker Miller.

The Moravian minister who lives in Raleigh had heard that the U.S. Justice Department was dispatching federal monitors to polls, which could possibly discourage some voters from casting a ballot.

US Justice Department to send election monitors to these NC counties

“We were told that there would be some type of federal presence in Wake County today,” said Parker Miller. “I didn’t know what to expect today, which is just always a little unnerving. But I’ve done this in the past and what I came in expecting today was to also have a very peaceful and fair and free election.”

Parker Miller said a successful Election Day would be an uneventful one.

“Everyone should have the right to vote if they are a registered voter and they have had their citizenship. So we want to make sure that they don’t have any hindrance to physically get into the polling place,” she said.

Regardless of the outcome of the midterms, Parker Miller said she hopes the political parties can find a way to set the rhetoric and rancor aside after Tuesday.

“Government, when it works, we don’t notice it,” said Parker Miller. “I’m really hoping that we can get back to things working for the common good.”

Polls close this evening at 7:30 pm. Eligible voters can find their Election Day polling location on the state Board of Elections’ Voter Search page.