By Michael Bitzer and Christopher Cooper
In person-early voting kicked off yesterday in North Carolina, but before a single in-person vote was cast, more than 65,000 votes had already been accepted across all 100 counties.
A host of political scientists, political analysis, and political consultants will be reporting patterns from these early voting numbers. Look for posts from the Kevin Bacon of North Carolina politics, Gerry Cohen (no one in #ncpol is more than six degrees removed), as well as from The John Locke Foundation's Andy Jackson, and University of Florida Political Scientist Michael McDonald. We will (individually and collectively) probably throw some of these results into the mix, too.
So, before we get to the season of early voting data, it's worth thinking through the mail and early voting process--why we do it, what we can learn, and what we can't.
