North Carolina released its final stats on early voting at 6 am this morning, and 50.62% of all Black registered voters in the state cast their votes in person at early voting centers. Combined with mail-in absentee ballots, the total Black turnout before the election day polls even open is 51.84%.
North Carolina closed out its early voting period Saturday with a total 2,398,481 votes cast in person, up from 2004's 984,294. 44.91% of the registered Democrats have voted, compared with 33.49% of the Republicans, with a D to R margin of 614,842. The in-person early voting total is 67.5% of the 3,551,675 total votes cast in 2004. 442,129 unaffiliated voters and 1,644 Libertarians also voted.
The mail-in absentee total of 225,698 has an approximate 59,000 turnout edge for the GOP, dwarfed by the heavily Democratic in person early votes.
Blacks made up 31.48% of the Saturday final day total of 231,758 voters at 337 sites, up from the 25.20% who early voted Friday. Both numbers exceed the 21.6% of registered voters who are Black.
Two heavily Democratic counties in the Research Triangle area outperformed even that. Durham County (2004 Kerry 68%, Bush 31%) saw 97,697 in-person early voters, 87.5% of the 2004 turnout, while Chapel Hill's Orange County (2004 Kerry 67%, Bush 32%) had 51,964 early votes, 78.6% of the total 2004 vote. Wake County (Raleigh) had 251,034 vote early, 70% of 2004 total.
NC for the first time allowed voter registration during early voting, and 91,736 new voters signed up at early vote centers. http://www.dailykos.com/...
For 2008, here is a breakdown of race of in-person early voters:
Black 28.35%
White 67.27%
Native Am 0.41%
Two Races 0.41%
Asian 0.64%
Other* 2.90%
* includes 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
The table below compares the % of in-person early voters from each party between 2008 and 2004:
2008 2004
Unaffiliated 18.43% 15%
Republican 27.93% 37%
Libertarian 0.07% 0.5%
Democratic 53.57% 48%
50.57% of the in-person early votes Saturday were Democratic, up from the 47.49% of Friday. The GOP total of 28.19% Saturday was down from the 31.78% of Friday.
In person early voters got 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 31.97%
Libertarian 0.06%
Democratic 45.72%
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.
Here are the mail-in gross totals of ballots voted
Civilian: 213,918* (of 259,384 issued, return deadline passed)
Military: 7,987** (of 13,170 issued, 11/4 return deadline)
Overseas: 3,792** (of 5,400 issued, 11/4 return deadline)
As of Saturday, the three categories of postal ballots broke down
U 17.8%
R 54.2%
L 0.05%
D 27.9%
Interestingly, the Overseas absentee voters (largely expats) broke down:
U 33.01%
R 23.52%
L 0.09%
D 43.38%
*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)
November 1 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/...