North Carolina registered 967,804 new voters in 2008. Of these, 91,736 registered at early voting centers and voted on the spot. These 91,736 voters were part of the astonishing 2,390,429 who voted onsite at early voting centers during a 17-day period that ended Saturday. Almost 4% of the early voters registered onsite. 95,903 voters reported address changes to another precinct at early voting sites, sparing them provisional ballots on election day.
North Carolina's total voter registration was 21.55% Black as of Saturday, of those who registered in 2008 31.48% are Black, and of those who registered during the early voting period 34.67% are Black.
Debunking the usual meme that people who signup in a registration drive won't bother to vote, 460,244 voters who registered since January 1, 2008 have already voted early or by mail, a 47.6% turnout, breaking down:
247,021 Democrats (54%)
97,203 Republicans (21%)
114,775 Unaffiliated (25%)
34% of all registered voters age 18-24 have already voted
After subtracting those whose registrations were cancelled for moves out of state, death, felony conviction, or whose registration were merely switched from one county to another within the State (which restores their voting eligibility), the net increase in voter registration from 1/1/2008 through 11/1/2008 was 654,785 and now totals 6,259,205.
Here's a breakdown of all the 967,804 new voters, as well as just the 91,736 who signed up during early voting and the total statewide registration:
PARTY
2008 early ALL voters
Democratic 48.67% 51.33% 45.73%
Republican 21.82% 25.29% 31.77%
Libertarian 0.27% 0.60% 0.06%
Unaffiliated 29.24% 22.75% 22.25%
RACE
Black 31.48% 34.68% 21.55%
White 56.42% 54.76% 73.48%
Am Ind 0.77% 0.90% 0.77%
Asian 1.65% ** *
Multi-Race 1.25% ** *
Other 2.26% ** *
Left Blank 6.16% ** *
* not available
** did not calculate
North Carolina authorized the onsite registration during early voting just last year, previously all voters had to have been registered 25 days before the election.
ELECTION NIGHT RETURNS MIGHT LOOK MISLEADING EARLY ON FROM NORTH CAROLINA
On election night, the early voting (which will probably be more than 50% of the total turnout) should be reported almost immediately after poll closing at 7:30 pm ET, followed shortly thereafter by the mail-in absentee ballots. Precinct returns will not be available until soon after the last person has voted in each precinct, which in elections with long lines could be an hour or more later. The almost 2.4 million early votes will be reported as somewhere between 100 and 300 precincts. North Carolina has 100 counties, some counties report all their early vote sites as one precinct, some give separate totals for each early vote site. The expected 250,000 mailins will be reported as one precinct per county. North Carolina has about 3,000 election day precincts. Since Obama is expected to handily carry the early vote, this could result in half the total votes cast in North Carolina being reported a few minutes after poll close but shown as just 10% of the precincts reporting with a wide Obama lead. Provisional ballots will be counted on November 14. There were about 250 provisionals among the early and mail-in absentee votes.