North Carolina now has had a record 1,690,195 in person early votes, as 210,925 more votes were cast Wednesday at 364 locations, besting the previous daily high of 195,003. The final 2004 total was 984,294. The final 2008 number should exceed 2 million. Early voting ends Saturday afternoon.
Blacks made up 24.24% of the Wednesday total, down from the 26.33% who voted early Tuesday. Both numbers exceed the 21.4% of registered voters who are Black. Already, 36.81% of Black registered voters in North Carolina have voted early, compared with 24.83% of Whites. 32.99% of registered Democrats have already voted, compared with 22.74% of registered Republicans.
104,165 Democrats voted Wednesday compared with 100,089 Tuesday, while 66,565 Republicans cast votes Wednesday up from the 59,148 of Tuesday. 51,134 Blacks voted Wednesday compared with 51,350 Tuesday.
For 2008, here is a breakdown by race of the first 14 days:
Black 28.95%
White 67.02%
Native Am 0.36%
Two Races 0.39%
Other* 3.28%
* 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 14-day
Unaffiliated 17.54%
Republican 26.83%
Libertarian 0.05%
Democratic 55.58%
49.38% of the early votes Tuesday were Democratic, down from the 51.45% of Tuesday. The GOP total of 31.56% Tuesday was up from the 30.36% of Monday.
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 caste has slowed. For example, as of Tuesday, 448,324 more Democrats than Republicans had voted, and that total swelled to 485,924 as of Wednesday. 296,541 unaffiliated and 910 Libertarian voters had also cast ballots as of Wednesday.
In person early voters get several benfits 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. On Wednesday at that site, 1598 votes were cast, including 109 who registered on site, and about 150 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 22.26%
Republican 32.00%
Libertarian 0.05%
Democratic 45.69%
North Carolina registered over 862,000 new voters in 2008, and voter registration continues at early voting sites. From October 16-30, 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%
The 862,000 includes early voters registering 10/16 through 10/23, so you can not add the numbers as there is some overlap. I'd say the new voter total this year is about 920,000 at this point.
As of Wednesday, the following percentage of each party's electorate has voted early:
Unaffiliated 21.38%
Republican 22.74%
Libertarian 27.53%
Democratic 32.99%
2004 totals for early voting:
Unaffiliated 15%
Republican 37%
Libertarian 0.5%
Democratic 48%
Here are the number of sites open each day:
Thursday and Friday: 364 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.
TODAY'S TIDBIT
As of close of business Wednesday, Durham County already has 70,896 in person early votes cast, 63.5% of the total votes (early, mail-in, and election day) cast in 2004. Three days remain in early voting. Kerry beat Bush in Durham in 2004 68% to 31%.
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 balots voted
Civilian: 148,074*
Military: 5,848**
Overseas: 2,817**
*includes military and overseas voters who were already registered. Deadline for ballot return 11/3.
**using Federal postcard absentee ballot application, Deadline for ballot return 11/4.
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/...