Among the 69,487 requests for mail-in absentee ballots:
- Registered Republicans have requested 44 percent of the mail-in ballots
- Registered Democrats are 32 percent
- Registered unaffiliated voters are 24 percent
- Women are 56 percent
- White voters are 85 percent, a slight increase in their percentage
- Black voters are 10 percent, a slight decrease
Among the 16, 821 ballots that have been returned and accepted (a 24 percent return rate so far), registered Republicans have taken a slight lead in their numbers:
- registered Republicans are 39 percent
- registered Democrats are 38 percent
- registered unaffiliated voters are 22 percent
- female voters have inched up to 54 percent
- white voters are 84 percent, while black voters are 11 percent
The percentage increase over 2010's numbers have slipped somewhat for Democrats, with registered unaffiliated voters now having the largest increase over their same-day totals:
As interest in early voting continues to grow across the nation and in North Carolina, the questions continue to be raised about these voters and what they may have done in 2010's mid-term election. In looking at today's data and comparing these voters against the 2010 voter records, we see a significant plurality of 2014 voters, especially among registered unaffiliated and Democratic voters, requesting mail-in ballots who did not participate in the 2010 mid-term election.
With Thursday's start of in-person absentee voting, the shift of this blog will go to that voting method on Friday, but I'll continue to track the overall numbers of this important votes in this heavily contested state.
