Early voting

A Senate committee approved a bill to allow voters to register three days before an election.

The bill, which originated in the House, would allow North Carolinians to register at one-stop voting sites up to the Saturday before an election.

Currently, state law requires counties to close the voter rolls 25 days before Election Day.

Advocates, who included Democracy North Carolina and the League of Women Voters, said that the measure would increase voter turnout and be more secure than mail-in registration.

Sen. Phil Berger, the Senate Republican leader, said he thought it would make some voters more likely to decide to try to register illegally.

"I think there are more (election fraud cases) than anyone wants to acknowledge, and in a close election, one could make a difference," he said.

But John Gilbert, chairman of the Wake County board of elections, said trained election workers would check each registration against a computer database.

"In a certain sense it's even more secure than our current methods," he said.