A record 2,166,723 in person early votes have been cast in North Carolina, with early voting ending Saturday afternoon in North Carolina. A daily record 259,043 more votes were cast Friday at 364 locations. The final 2004 total was 984,294, this year's should exceed 2.3 million. Meanwhile, over 101,000 new voters have registered during early voting.
UPDATE 11:30 PM Final NC Early voting total 2,369,577 with 202,854 on Saturday.
Blacks made up 25.20% of the Friday total, up from the 24.14% who early voted Thursday. Both numbers exceed the 21.6% of registered voters who are Black. Already, 45.19% of Black registered voters in North Carolina have voted early, compared with 32.07% of Whites. 40.90% of registered Democrats have already voted, compared with 30.27% of registered Republicans.
45 counties (including all urban areas except Wilmington) close polls today at 5 pm, 50 counties close at 1 pm and the other five in between. Closing hours were extended from the originally scheduled 1 pm statewide due to heavy turnout. Those in line at closing time at the 337 locations can vote.
UPDATE 7 pm: Final Durham early voting total: 97,697, which is 87.5% of the ENTIRE 2004 turnout (mail in, early, and election day)
In heavily Democratic Durham County (which Kerry carried 68-31 in 2004), 79% of the 2004 total vote has already been cast at early vote centers.
123,014 Democrats voted Friday compared with 105,234 Thursday, while 82,319 Republicans cast votes Thursday up from the 68,869 of Thursday. 65,287 Blacks voted Friday compared with 52,510 Thursday.
For 2008, here is a breakdown by race with one day left:
Black 28.02%
White 67.79%
Native Am 0.39%
Two Races 0.40%
Other* 3.39%
* 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
Unaffiliated 18.15%
Republican 27.90%
Libertarian 0.06%
Democratic 53.89%
2004 totals for early voting:
Unaffiliated 15%
Republican 37%
Libertarian 0.5%
Democratic 48%
47.49% of the early votes Friday were Democratic, down from the 48.39% of Thursday. The GOP total of 31.78% Friday was up from the 31.67% 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 Thursday, 522,289 more Democrats than Republicans had voted, and that margin swelled to 562,894 as of Friday. 393,216 unaffiliated and 1,321 Libertarian voters had also cast ballots as of Friday.
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.
The entire electorate in North Carolina breaks down:
Unaffiliated 22.25%
Republican 31.98%
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 Friday, the following percentage of each party's electorate has voted early:
Unaffiliated 28.29%
Republican 30.27%
Libertarian 38.39%
Democratic 40.90%
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: 179,487* (of 259,384 issued, 11/3 return deadline)
Military: 6,563** (of 13,170 issued, 11/4 return deadline)
Overseas: 3,151** (of 5,400 issued, 11/4 return deadline)
As of THURSDAY, the three categories of 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 52,000, dwarfed by the 562.984+ 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/...