Monday, November 3, 2014

The Day Before Election Day, A Few Readjustments to NC's Early Voting Numbers

We've seen a slight revision in the numbers of NC early votes coming in today right before the big day on Tuesday.

The early ballots--civilian mail-in, military mail-in, in person one-stop, and overseas mail-in--are 1,191,162, with the vast majority--1,097,563--come in via in person one-stop balloting.

Of these 1.19 million ballots, 1,155,666 have been accepted and recorded as votes for tomorrow's election, with 35,496 ballots remaining outstanding that could come in via mail or in-person, due to sick or disabled voters having until 5 PM Monday to return request (corrected) their ballots.

So we will probably see some further slight movement, especially with mail-in ballots coming in over the next few days. 

As of today's numbers regarding those who have cast early in person ballots, the composition of the electorate remains the same as we've seen over the past few days: 


Cumulatively, registered Democrats are 48.5 percent of the ballots cast via in person early voting, registered Republicans are 31.1 percent of the ballots cast, and registered unaffiliated/Libertarian voters are 20.4 percent of the early ballots cast in person.  

These numbers are all significantly above 2010's numbers, which may be due to the competitive nature of the U.S. Senate race, the anger and resulting mobilization of Democrats against the GOP's state government, and the influence of $100 million into the state's airwaves.

For registered Democrats, they saw an additional 106,000 voters cast early in person ballots, registered unaffiliated voters saw 192,000 more voters, and registered Republicans saw 16,000 more voters than in the last mid-term election.  

While these total numbers of in person early ballots doesn't match the 2012 presidential year numbers, the proportion of this electorate is more similar to a presidential year than a traditional mid-term year in North Carolina.

The key, though, is that this year's mid-term election isn't anything like 2006 or 2010 in North Carolina, so we may have to deal with a new ballgame when it comes to 2014.

White voters are 71 percent of the in person early ballots cast, while black voters are 26 percent of these same ballots. That is a closer ratio to a presidential year performance than the 2010 performance by racial groups.

Among the party registration and how these 2014 in person early voters participated in the 2010 mid-term elections:


The key here is the significant plurality of registered unaffiliated voters (33 percent) and registered Democrats (25 percent) who did not participate (either due to the fact that they weren't in the state, weren't registered, or simply didn't vote) in 2010.  

Let the actual Election Day activities begin! GO VOTE!