UPDATE: It was discovered that there may be an incorrect data load from Mecklenburg County, home to Charlotte and one of the largest counties in the state. Only 500 in-person accepted early votes were recorded in the state datafile this morning for Wednesday's early voting; on the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections website, 10,624 ballots were cast. Previously, on Tuesday, over 10,000 ballots were cast. Will update this blog entry once those numbers are corrected from either the state or county. --MB
Tuesday's voting brought in nearly 118,000 in-person accepted early ballots to push the total early in-person accepted votes to nearly 550,000 so far (546,995 to be exact). Of all early ballots submitted, and that includes both in-person and mail-in, 583,864 have been accepted as votes, with ballots from registered Democrats at 281,313, registered Republicans at 184,161, registered Unaffiliated voters at 117,510, and registered Libertarians at 880.
Among the accepted in-person early ballots, yesterday's daily totals were:
- from registered Democrats: 48 percent
- from registered Republicans: 32 percent
- from registered unaffiliated: 20 percent
- from women: 55 percent
- from white voters: 73 percent
- from black voters: 24 percent
Of the cumulative accepted in-person early ballots, the totals so far are:
- from registered Democrats: 49 percent
- from registered Republicans: 31 percent
- from registered unaffiliated: 20 percent
- from women: 53 percent
- from white voters: 72 percent
- from black voters: 25 percent
The trends comparing this year's accepted in-person early ballots to the last mid-term election in 2010 shows Democrats and unaffiliated voters are still overperforming their numbers from four years ago:
- overall in-person early ballots accepted are 106 percent of the same day total in 2010
- overall in-person early ballots accepted from registered Democratic voters are 116 percent of the same day total in 2010
- overall in-person early ballots accepted from registered unaffiliated voters are 125 percent of the same day total in 2010
- overall in-person early ballots accepted from registered Republican voters are 87 percent of the same day total in 2010
Of the North Carolina voters who have cast in-person early ballots, their voting methods continue to show a sizable segment of Democrats and unaffiliated voters who did not vote in 2010:
Based on the 21 percent of registered Democrats and the 28 percent of registered unaffiliated voters who didn't cast a ballot in 2010 (whether because they were not registered, not living in the state, or simply did not vote), there is still a sense of an active ground game operation that is bringing in voters into this year's election. If this pattern holds throughout the remainder of the early voting period, it may indicate a slightly higher turnout rate than what we have traditionally seen in North Carolina voter turnout in mid-term elections (in 2006, it was 37 percent and in 2010, it was 44 percent).
