About mid-day on Saturday, October 25, One–Stop Voting in NC reached one million ballots cast. With another week of One-Stop Early Voting still to go, NC has already surpassed the early voting turn-out for the 2004 Presidential election by over 300,000 ballots.
As of the end of this week’s early voting on Saturday, October 25, the numbers for NC are as follow:
One-Stop Early Voting ballots cast so far: 1,084,781 (1,346,071)
Democrats: 626,231 (697,522)
Republicans: 271,895 (412,312 - includes sizeable military vote)
Unaffiliated: 185,890 (235,501)
Libertarians 575 (709)
African American Voters: 329,716 (349,689)
Women: 609,149 (754,218)
White Men: 321,205 (422,048)
Under 30: 129,316 (182,128)
Over 60: 366,728 (460,925)
Because One-Stop ballots are treated as absentee ballots, the total number of ballots cast so far includes the mailed-in absentee ballots as well. I indicated the combined number of ballots cast so far in parentheses.
These numbers are raw and contain unverified ballots, duplicates, spoiled ballots, ballots with conflicts, and ballots marked "did not vote."
For reference, North Carolina has 6,213,267 registered voters, almost 700,000 more than in the last Presidentail election.
Current party affiliation break-down:
Democrats: 2,837,178 (still includes a number of so-called Dixiecrats)
Republicans: 1,990,049
Unaffiliated: 1,382,875
Libertarians: 3,165
Now compare that to the 2004 Early Voting data:
2004 Early Voting One-Stop Voting: 707,636 (814,005)
Democrats: 356,551 (395,505)
Republicans: 255,651 (304,128)
Unaffiliated: 94,425 (113,172)
Consider this:
Bush/Cheney 1,961,166
Kerry/Edwards 1,525,849
Difference 435,317
2004 Turn-out: 64% of 5,519,992 registered voters
Dems 65% - pitiful! Democrats are much more motivated this time around.
Reps 69%
Una 54%
African American voters: 59% - expect a sharp increase here
White 66%
Women 65%
Men 63%
We are looking great compared to the last Presidential election, but there are still some glitches to fix. What concerns me even more than ballots that are rejected are registrations that have been rejected. I personally know of several first-time voters who registered before the October 10 deadline but were not on the voter rolls when they came to vote at the early voting sites. Luckily, they could re-register and vote. When they contacted their County’s Board of Election, they were informed that their registrations were rejected due to a mismatch in their addresses. The County BOE does send out notices to inform newly registered voters if there is a problem; however, BOE staff has been so overwhelmed by the sheer number of new registrations that they are falling behind and the follow-up notices may be delayed.
This is not a conspiracy, just lack of planning. I am a precinct chair, and I have been nagging my County leadership to get access to the list of rejected registrations. If counties and precincts can get their hands on this information in time, we could contact those rejected registrants and get them to the One-Stop polling sites next week and have them re-register and vote.
I urge every newly registered voter in NC to check the status of their registration at http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/... Vote during early One-Stop voting so that any discrepancies can be resolved. If there is a problem with your registration and you wait until November 4 to vote, your only recourse will be a provisional ballot.
And then after you have voted, check on the status of your vote the following day (wait a bit longer if you registered at the same time you voted). While the number of rejected ballots is relatively small, you may want to know about any problems while you still can do something about it. If your ballot has been accepted, you should see the following message: "Absentee Ballot OK – Voted One-Stop" and the date you voted.
In case of any problems, call the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline or go to http://www.866ourvote.org. There are countless lawyers standing by in NC to address every issue you may have. But it needs to be reported!
Happy Early Voting! And let’s keep breaking every record on the books!