The 2026 elections are here. Voting starts Monday in the primary elections, giving millions of North Carolinians the chance to determine who will face off in November’s general election.

Election Day itself for the primaries isn’t until March 3. So people who are still undecided — or who haven’t yet started researching which races or candidates they can vote for — still have nearly two months to learn more.

But on Monday, the state will begin sending out mail-in ballots to those who have requested them, and those people can start filling them out and sending them back.

For people who want to vote by mail, there’s still more time to request a ballot. That deadline is still more than a month away. For people who’d rather vote in person, there’s plenty more to know about that process as well. And for people who need to register for the first time, update their name or address or change parties, there are some upcoming voter registration deadlines as well.

Here are some key dates and facts to know about voting in North Carolina’s 2026 primary elections.

Important dates

Jan. 12: Start of mail-in votingFeb. 6: Voter registration deadline (except for people people who plan to use early voting, since they can register during the early voting process)Feb. 12-28: Early votingFeb. 17: Deadline to request an absentee ballotMarch 3: Election Day

Which races you can vote for: North Carolina has what’s called a semi-closed primary. If you belong to a political party, you have to vote in that party’s primary. But if you’re registered as unaffiliated, you can choose which party’s primary to vote in. There are a few statewide races on the ballot this year, including U.S. Senate, that every North Carolinian can vote in. But most races on the ballot are limited to smaller regions — state and federal legislative seats, county sheriffs, judges and prosecutors, and a few city council races including Raleigh’s.

How to research the candidates: Anyone in the state can find their specific sample ballot — or, for unaffiliated voters, all the sample ballots they’ll be allowed to choose from — by looking up their voter registration online. Enter your name on the state’s voter-search website, find your records and scroll down to the field marked “your sample ballot” where there will be links indicating “D” for Democrat, “R” for Republican or both. There are no primaries on the ballot this year for the state’s other recognized political parties, the Libertarian and Green parties.

Rules for mail-in voting: Unlike some other states, anyone in North Carolina can vote by mail for any reason. But while it offers a way to skip any lines or having to drive to a polling place, it can also come with some added steps. The ballots must be signed by witnesses and can be thrown out if the signatures or other information get accidentally written in the wrong place. People who want to track their ballots through the mail can use an app called BallotTrax. That allows people to know whether their ballot has been received, or if they should perhaps ask to cancel their mail-in ballot and go vote in person instead.

When to mail your ballot: In a recent change, North Carolina voters must now mail their ballots in at least several days before Election Day. State lawmakers recently did away with the state’s three-day grace period. That grace period allowed ballots to arrive and be counted after the election, as long as they were postmarked by Election Day. Now any mail-in ballots that arrive after polls close on Election Day will be thrown in the trash regardless of when they were mailed. People who want to ensure their ballots are received can also decide not to put them in the mail at all but instead hand-deliver them to their home county’s board of elections office.