So Is It a Mid-Term Year or Something Else in North Carolina?

After three days of absentee one-stop voting (in other words, in-person early voting) so far, we have an interesting trend developing in North Carolina.

So far, there have been 388,817 absentee in-person ballots cast and accepted as votes for the November 6th election.

In comparing that total on day three of 2018's early voting (which is one more day than either 2010's mid-term or 2016's presidential, and eight days more than the 2014 mid-term election), there's an interesting comparison--and remember, 2018 is a 'blue-moon' election with no major state-wide race (such as U.S. Senate or governor, other than a state supreme court election):

NC's First Day of "Early Voting" (Even Though We've Been Voting for a Few Weeks Now)

Wednesday, October 17th was the first day of what many refer to as North Carolina's 'early voting,' even though voters have been requesting and returning ballots for some time now through the mail.

The state's start of absentee onestop ballots, sometimes referred to as 'in-person early voting,' began with a significant run at the numbers. The following shows some comparative analysis for the beginning of a popular method of voters casting ballots. This data comes from the North Carolina State Board of Elections & Ethics Enforcement and can be found here.

First, a note on comparing this year's in-person 'early votes' to other mid-term election years: 2010 had a window of 17 days, while 2014 had a window of only 10 days. This year's window of 18 days will therefore be much different in the past, but the comparison may be helpful to show some trends.

The overall totals of NC's absentee ballots, both for mail and in-person:

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: