The NC State Board of Elections has extended the Saturday 1 pm end of early voting by 4 hours in most counties due to North Carolina' record 1,907,680 in person early votes, as a daily record 210,925 more votes were cast Thursday at 364 locations. The final 2004 total was 984,294, this year's should exceed 2.2 million. Meanwhile, over 101,000 new voters have registered during early voting.
Blacks made up 24.14% of the Thursday total, down from the 24.24% who early voted Wednesday. Both numbers exceed the 21.4% of registered voters who are Black. Already, 40.76% of Black registered voters in North Carolina have voted early, compared with 28.22% of Whites. 36.63% of registered Democrats have already voted, compared with 26.17% of registered Republicans.
105,234 Democrats voted Thursday compared with 104,165 Wednesday, while 68,869 Republicans cast votes Thursday up from the 66,565 of Wednesday. 52,510 Blacks voted Thursday compared with 51,134 Wednesday.
For 2008, here is a breakdown by race the first 15 days:
Black 28.40%
White 67.50%
Native Am 0.38%
Two Races 0.39%
Other* 3.33%
* includes Asian, blank field, undesignated, AND other. Hispanics who list themselves as undesignated or other or leave the race field blank are aggregated under "Other". Hispanics who also list Black or White appear in those categories
By party, the 2008 totals are
Cumulative 15-day
Unaffiliated 17.81%
Republican 27.38%
Libertarian 0.06%
Democratic 54.76%
2004 totals for early voting:
Unaffiliated 15%
Republican 37%
Libertarian 0.5%
Democratic 48%
48.39% of the early votes Thursday were Democratic, down from the 49.38% of Wednesday. The GOP total of 31.67% Thursday was up from the 31.65% of Wednesday.
As the early voting period winds to a close, each day's total of NEW ballots cast begins to trend toward historical averages, but even for those days, Democrats continue to outperform. One analysis: The RATE of INCREASE in the TOTAL number of Democratic versus Republican ballots cast has slowed. For example, as of Wednesday, 485,924 more Democrats than Republicans had voted, and that total swelled to 522,289 as of Thursday. 339,724 unaffiliated and 1103 Libertarian voters had also cast ballots as of Thursday.
In person early voters get several benefits over election day voters in North Carolina. New voters can register at early voting sites but not on election day. Already registered voters reporting address changes within a county can get a regular ballot at early voting sites, but on election day may wind up with a more cumbersome provisional ballot.
One sample site, Pullen Arts Center in Wake County (across from the NC State University campus) was featured in footage on NBC Nightly News Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday at that site, 1696 votes were cast, including 180 who registered on site, and about 160 more reported address changes within Wake County. It's not just the same people voting earlier.
The entire electorate in North Carolina breaks down:
Unaffiliated 22.25%
Republican 31.99%
Libertarian 0.05%
Democratic 45.71%
North Carolina has registered over 900,000 new voters in 2008, and voter registration continues at early voting sites. While early voting began in NC in 2000, allowing voter registration during the early voting period was first allowed in 2007. From October 16-29, 101,421 new voters registered at early voting sites, 37.6% of whom are Black. By party affiliation, the new voters at early voting sites break down:
U 20.5%
R 25.1%
L 0.2%
D 54.16%
As of Wednesday, the following percentage of each party's electorate has voted early:
Unaffiliated 24.47%
Republican 26.17%
Libertarian 32.63%
Democratic 36.63%
Here are the number of sites open each day:
Friday: 364 in 100 counties
Saturday: 337 sites in 100 counties
TODAY'S TIDBIT
As of close of business Thursday, Durham County already has 79,222 in person early votes cast, 70.9% of the total votes (early, mail-in, and election day) cast in 2004. Kerry beat Bush in Durham in 2004 68% to 31%. Another 4,279 mailin ballots have been received, bringing the total already voted to 74.7% of the 2004 turnout.
Since North Carolina captures party and race on its registration records, and posts early votes cast to the voter record each evening, stats can be run the next morning.
This data analysis above does NOT include stats on mail-in absentee ballots, only those cast in person.
Here are the mail-in gross totals of ballots voted
Civilian: 160,630* (of 259,384 issued, 11/3 return deadline)
Military: 6,171** (of 13,170 issued, 11/4 return deadline)
Overseas: 2,959** (of 5,400 issued, 11/4 return deadline)
The three categories if postal ballots break down
U 17.3%
R 54.5%
L 0.01%
D 28.1%
The total margin of R over D in postal absentees is about 47,000, dwarfed by the 522,000+ margin of D over R in in person early votes.
*includes military and overseas voters who were already registered.
**using Federal postcard absentee ballot application
No racial breakdown is available for 2004 on the State Board of Elections files.
files used for data analysis
2008 ftp://www.app.sboe.state.nc.us/enrs/absentee11xx04xx2008_Stats.xls (updated daily)
2004 ftp://www.app.sboe.state.nc.us/enrs/absentee11xx02xx2004.zip
2008 http://sboe.state.nc.us (current registration)
October 29 party registration totals at
http://www.app.sboe.state.nc.us/...
http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/...
2008 new voters
http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/...