North Carolina shattered its 2004 early voting total Saturday as 98,675 more votes were cast in a shortened slate of 197 sites in 53 of the State's 100 counties. The cumulative total of 1,078,710 in person early votes through 10 day of a 17-day period shatters the old mark of 984,294 that covered all 17 days. The final 2008 number could be close to 2 million.
Blacks made up 30.94% of the Saturday total, up from the 26.87% who voted Friday. Both numbers greatly exceed the 21.4% of registered voters who are Black. Already, 24.63% of Black registered voters in North Carolina have voted early, compared with 15.53% of Whites.
The current D to R ratio of early voters is 58% to 25%, compared with 2004's final early voting 48% to 37%
For 2008, here is a breakdown by race of the first ten days:
Black 30.35%
White 65.70%
Native Am 0.34%
Two Races 0.39%
Other* 3.22%
* 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 10-day
Unaffiliated 17.12%
Republican 25.09%
Libertarian 0.05%
Democratic 57.74%
53.65% of the early votes Saturday were Democratic, up from the 53.30% of Friday. The 53.65% is nearly double the GOP total of 26.96% of Saturday.
The entire electorate in North Carolina breaks down:
Unaffiliated 22.26%
Republican 32.03%
Libertarian 0.05%
Democratic 45.66%
North Carolina registered over 862,000 new voters in 2008, and voter registration continues at early voting sites.
As of Saturday, the following percentage of each party's electorate has voted early:
Unaffiliated 13.35%
Republican 13.60%
Libertarian 18.07%
Democratic 21.95%
2004 totals for early voting:
Unaffiliated 15%
Republican 37%
Libertarian 0.5%
Democratic 48%
North Carolina allows early voting through Saturday, November 1.
Here are the number of sites open each day:
Sunday 10/26: 55 in 10 counties
Monday 10/27: 365 in 100 counties
Tuesday through Friday: 360 in 100 counties
Saturday 11/1 337 sites in 100 counties
90 counties cut off at 1 pm November 1, the other 10 have closing hours the final day from 2 pm to as late as 5 pm.
This diary does NOT include stats on mail-in absentee ballots, only those cast in person. 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.
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 25 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/...