The North Carolina State Board of Elections posted a mid-day update Thursday at 1 pm, the toal is now 736,701, meaning almost 60,000 more votes had been cast by that hour. About 1/4 of the sites are open well into the evening.
North Carolina had 132,878 more early votes cast Wednesday, for a cumulative seven-day total of 676,878. A 17-day early voting period opened in North Carolina last Thursday. Blacks made up 28.78% of the Tuesday total, down from the 31.34% who voted Tuesday. Both numbers greatly exceed the 21.2% of registered voters who are Black. Already, 16.35% of Black registered voters in North Carolina have voted early already, compared with 9.60% of Whites.
For 2008, here is a breakdown by race of the first seven days:
Black 31.72%
White 64.49%
Native Am 0.34%
Two Races 0.38%
Other* 3.07%%
* includes Asian, blank field, undesignated, AND other.
By party, the 2008 totals are
Cumulative seven-day
Unaffiliated 16.50%
Republican 23.49%
Libertarian 0.05%
Democratic 59.96%
57.13% of the early votes Wednesday were Democratic, off slightly from the 59.10% of Tuesday.
The entire electorate in North Carolina breaks down:
Unaffiliated 22.25%
Republican 32.08%
Libertarian 0.05%
Democratic 45.61%
North Carolina registered over 862,000 new voters in 2008, and voter registration continues at early voting sites.
As of Wednesday, the following percentage of each party's electorate has voted early:
Unaffiliated 8.11%
Republican 8.02%
Libertarian 11.26%
Democratic 14.38%
In 2004, 984,298 early votes were cast for the 17-day period.
North Carolina allows early voting through Saturday, November 1. Thursday, 333 sites are open around the state, and the number grows to 335 Friday and 367 next Monday, before dropping to 360 on Tuesday. Saturday, October 25, 197 sites are open in 53 of the 100 counties, while Sunday, October 26 will see 55 sites in 10 counties open. Saturday, November 1, 337 sites will be open with at least one site in each of the 100 counties. 90 counties cut off at 1 pm November 1, the other 10 have closing hours 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)
http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/...
2008 new voters
http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/...