Monday, October 15, 2018

Going into This Week's In-Person Absentee Voting & "T Minus 3 Weeks & Counting" Until Election Day 2018

As North Carolina gets ready to start casting absentee one-stop (that is, in-person no excuse absentee voting) and we hit the three weeks mark until Election Day 2018, here is where things stand with the state's absentee by mail ballots.

Total requested absentee mail ballots, through 10-14-18 (as of 10-15-18): 68,940

Total sent absentee mail ballots: 67,129 (97.3 percent of those requested)

Total returned and accepted absentee mail ballots: 10,279 (14.9 percent of those requested)

Here are the party registration data for requested, sent, and accepted mail ballots:





In comparison to the requested ballots, here are the percentages of mail absentee ballots that have been returned and accepted by the voter's party registration:


And then the comparison of where we stand, as of 10-15-18 (23 days out from Election Day), with the 2014 final numbers for both requested absentee by mail (67 percent of 2014's totals) and returned & accepted absentee by mail ballots (13 percent of 2014's totals):


The trend lines of comparing the daily totals in 2014 to 2018 (by the same day out from Election Day) continue to show considerable strength in this year's absentee mail ballots, especially noteworthy that this year's election has no major state-wide race (beyond a state supreme court race):


Once we get to the three week mark, I'll add the remaining days until Election Day.

Then, a comparison by voter party registration between 2014's day's requested totals (the dotted lines) and 2018's daily requested totals (the solid lines):


And the percentage comparison of 2018 to 2014's same day totals:


And the numbers of differences:


The following chart shows the 2014 total numbers of requested and returned/accepted absentee mail ballots and where things stand as of 2018:


The generational analysis of NC's absentee mail ballots continues to show a skew towards older voters, which is traditional; yet, there is one age group that is intriguing in its performance in this vote method:




Those voters under the age of 21, known as Generation Z, are only 5 percent of the state's voter registration pool of 7 million (as of 10-13-18), but are 8 percent of the requested absentee mail ballots so far.

With North Carolina's biggest contests this mid-term at the congressional level, three of the four districts that are showing the greatest interests are considered the most competitive in the state: the 2nd Congressional District, the 9th Congressional District, and the 13th Congressional District.



In looking at this nearly 70,000 voters who have requested absentee mail ballots, I took their registration data and their voting history to look at how these voters may have voted in 2014, if they were registered after the last mid-term election:




The plurality of voters requesting absentee mail ballots continues to be those voters who were registered in 2014 but didn't vote in 2014.

Next, I looked at the gender breakdowns, and we continue to see a pretty significant advantage to female voters, and within that group, registered Democrats continue their show of strength:


And then looking at gender differences within the voter's region (which could be within a central city within an urban county, within the outlying suburbs within that central city's urban county, the surrounding suburban county, and rural counties):



Urban voters (those who live in a central city within an urban county) continue to be a plurality of all voters, but suburban voters (both those who live in an urban county but outside the central city and those who live in the surrounding suburban counties) are a majority of both female and male voters.

Finally, those requested ballots that have been returned and accepted:


And by party registration, again comparing 2014 (dotted line) to 2018 (solid line):


And by actual numbers: