Differences in Absentee Ballots: 2012 vs. 2016 by Party Registration in North Carolina

With the dramatic increases in absentee ballots in North Carolina and preparing for the general election day, a question from a Twitter follower was, "what areas saw the most changes among absentee voters?"

Using information on accepted absentee ballots in both 2012 and this year (with some changes in the numbers still expected), I was able to run cross-tabs of the different party registration based on two key factors: region and race.

First, the Democrats saw a very slight drop in their absentee ballots (both mail-in and in-person) from 2012's totals. In looking at the cross-tabs by region (urban, suburban, and rural counties) by race, the following demonstrates the changes in the Democratic voter base among absentee voters:

Among white voters, Democrats overall saw a 5 percent increase in registered members of their party showing up to cast absentee ballots, but there were noticeable differences by region: rural white Democrats were slightly down, while urban and most notably suburban white Democrats were up over their numbers from four years ago.

The critical change from 2012, to the negative, is among black Democrats. Only among suburban black Democrats was there an increase from four years ago, while among urban and rural black Democrats, the drops were noticeable to have an overall drop of 8 percent from 2012's numbers. 

Among all other races, however, registered Democrats saw, at times, dramatic increases in their numbers from 2012's totals. And while some of the changes were due to what would appear to be small numerical changes (for example, Indian Americans went from 7,372 to 7,485), registered Asian Democrats went from 8,146 to 12,345, while those voters who classify themselves as 'other races' went from 17,220 to 24,677.

Overall, registered Democrats saw their greatest decline in their numbers from rural counties, down 10 percent (from 324,373 to 290,856) and contributing to the slight decrease in their overall numbers. Yet suburban Democrats, going from 200,445 to 215,107, showed the greatest increase. 

Among registered Republicans, the total numbers went up by 13 percent, but there were slight differences among the regions and racial categories. 

While white Republicans were up 12 percent, it was suburban white Republicans who were up the largest in their numbers (up 30 percent), while white urban Republicans were up on 4 percent. 

While the black Republican numbers seem dramatic, it was an overall difference between 10,949 in 2012 and 10,067 this year in terms of ballots being cast.

Again, the other races were among the consistent growth areas, but like with black Republicans, the numbers were fairly small: Asian Republicans from 3,624 to 4,865; Indian Americans from 1,937 to 2,776; and multi-racial Republican voters from 1,604 to 1,985. Among those voters who did not indicate a race on their voter registration form, the noticeable increases was from a total of 9,783 in 2012 to 17,029. Overall, like with registered Democrats, suburban registered Republicans saw the greatest overall regional increase, of 31 percent. 

Finally, the huge increase of registered unaffiliated voters is dramatic in comparison to their partisan counterparts. 

White registered unaffiliated voters saw an overall increase of 41 percent, but among suburban white registered unaffiliated voters, it was an increase of 57 percent. 

Among black unaffiliated voters, who are typically more from the Millennial generation, it was again suburban black unaffiliated voters showing the largest increase. 

Again, like the partisans, all other races saw huge increases among unaffiliated voters. Among Asian registered unaffiliated voters, their numbers in 2012 was 10,422; this year, there was 17,340. The other numerical large-scale increase was among 'other' races, which went from 12,850 four years ago to 20,670 this year. 

The accepted absentee ballots' electorate could be anywhere from 60 to 65 percent of the total electorate (ballots cast); in 2012, 61 percent of the ballots in that election came before Election Day (56 percent from in-person absentee ballots, with the remaining 5 percent from mail-in absentee ballots). If the overall electorate increases beyond 4.5 million ballots (as it was in 2012), then the Election Day electorate will be critical to watch as the absentee ballots may be on the lower end of the 60 percent range. 

Some Exploration of the True Wildcard in NC's Early Voting: Registered Unaffiliated Voters

With the near-final numbers posted in terms of North Carolina's absentee voting before Tuesday's election, the true wildcard seems to be the huge spike in registered unaffiliated voters who have cast a quarter of all the absentee ballots.

Their numbers are up over 40 percent from where they were in 2012 at the end of the early voting period, so I decided to look more closely at these voters who could potentially hold the balance for which party wins in North Carolina.

First, a general overview of the state's unaffiliated voters: where registered partisans (Democrats and Republicans) in North Carolina tend to be older, registered unaffiliated voters skew younger, due to the growing influence of Millennial voters; nearly 40 percent of registered Millennials are unaffiliated.

We see this influence of younger voters in breaking down each party registration category. Voters under the age of 51 are a majority (55 percent) of the registered unaffiliated voters who have cast accepted absentee ballots so far in this year's election in North Carolina.

One of the key dynamics going on in North Carolina's voter pool is the fact that most Millennial voters (who are the second largest generation cohort in the state's voter pool) live in urban counties; these urban areas also dominate the state's politics and voter pool as well.

With urban counties making up 54 percent of the state's voter pool, and Millennials at 30 percent of the voter pool, this combination is shifting the dynamics of the state.

I next isolated all of the state's registered Millennial voters and looked at their location and party registration.

With 61 percent of Millennials living in urban counties, they tend to split between registering as Democrats and unaffiliated, with 20 percent registering as Republicans.  In the other areas, registered Millennials in North Carolina tend to be much more unaffiliated than partisan. 

So, this gives us a sense of Millennials and their influence in North Carolina politics.

Now, we turn back to the unaffiliated absentee voters who may be the key to this year's election in North Carolina. 

One crude 'proxy' that might get at how these unaffiliated voters are potentially casting their ballots for the general election would be if these unaffiliated voters cast ballots in the March 2016 primary in North Carolina.

For unaffiliated voters, they have to pick a party to cast a ballot in for the primary election, and we can match their March 2016 voting records of which ballot they requested with their current status. Granted, this 'proxy' may not necessarily capture all aspects of the dynamics of a voter, simply due to the partisan nature of many North Carolina counties. To have any influence in a county's politics, especially if you are in the minority party, you may have to be a registered unaffiliated voter and cast your primary vote in the party opposite your true partisanship, and then return home in the general election. Or perhaps a registered unaffiliated voted in a party's primary to vote against a particular candidate; again, this proxy may not be the best one out there, other than asking "for whom did you cast your general election ballot for?"

With those caveats said, among the 807,000 unaffiliated voters who have cast accepted absentee ballots so far, the overall composition of this group by generation and region point to a distinct slant:

Among the early unaffiliated voters, 38 percent are urban Millennials and Generation Xers (under the age of 51), with another 19 percent being urban Baby Boomers. North Carolina's urban areas have been trending more and more Democratic in nature, as evidence by Obama receiving 56 percent of the urban county presidential vote in 2012. 

We also know that Millennials tend to be more Democratic-leaning in their partisan affiliation. 

In using the 'proxy' of voting in North Carolina's March primary, the thinking is that we could see a sense of where unaffiliated voters may 'see' themselves as partisans. 

Of the 807,000 unaffiliated voters who have cast accepted absentee ballots so far for the November election, 44 percent (348,000) cast ballots in one of the two major parties' primaries in March of 2016. 

Of that 348,000 primary voters, 56 percent cast ballots in the Republican primary, while 44 percent cast them in the Democratic primary.

So, one would think that NC's unaffiliated voters are perhaps more leaners to the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. 

But in looking at these possible lean-unaffiliated voters, a plurality (47 percent) of the GOP-primary voters and 67 percent of the Democratic-primary voters in March were urban county voters.  In total, of the 348,000 March primary voters, 56 percent of them were urban county voters. 

Among those urban county unaffiliated voters, Millennials and Generation Xers made up 50 percent of the ballots being cast in the two parties. And of those two generations, which party did they cast their ballots in the primary?

So in urban counties, which have dominate the November accepted absentee vote totals so far with 55 percent of the accepted ballots cast, urban unaffiliated voters who are under the age of 51 and who cast ballots in the March primary election did so towards the Democratic primary (63 percent) over the Republican primary (37 percent). 

Granted, half of the urban county unaffiliated voters who voted in March split between those over and under the age of 51, but making a claim that a majority of unaffiliated voters are more Republican-leaning than Democratic may be masked by the voter's location and a more detailed analysis of which party they participated in for the March primary.

Ultimately, this may be an exercise in probability, simply because of the 807,000 unaffiliated voters who have cast accepted absentee ballots for Tuesday, the majority--57 percent--of them didn't participate in the March primary and we have no idea of how they may lean in their partisan affiliation. And of these non-March primary voters, over one-third of them (36%) are Millennial voters.

Based on the possible different interpretations of the above data, we should probably continue with the belief that this pool of 800,000 unaffiliated voters, along with another chunk of unaffiliated voters on Tuesday, will tip the balance of partisan power one way or the other in North Carolina. There's just too much uncertainty about this influential and unknown group of voters to make a call one way or the other, but different ways of looking at them can produce potential benefits or disadvantages to one party or the other. 

NC Absentee Ballots Reach 1.5M as of 10-29-16

With the second full day of expanded early voting locations and hours in North Carolina, voters are obviously very interested in doing two things: voting and thus being done with this election. North Carolina's overall absentee ballots continues to run ahead of where the state was four years ago, with interesting differences within the voting method and party registration. 

All Absentee Ballots:

Through Friday, October 28th, which is the eight full day of absentee in-person voting (along with absentee mail-in voting), the cumulative total absentee ballots for North Carolina stands at 1,561,390; this includes all requested mail-in ballots and in-person ballots (see here for a brief explanation of my analysis process). 

This 1.5 million of requested absentee ballots represents an increase of 5.4 percent over the same day cumulative totals of all absentee ballots in 2012:

Of the 1.5 million absentee ballots, registered Democrats are 43 percent, registered Republicans are 31 percent, registered unaffiliated voters are 25 percent, and registered Libertarians are less than one percent. By voting method, the party registration breakdowns show advantages to the two major parties in different voting methods:

In looking at this 1.5 million by party registration and comparing it to 2012's same day totals by party:

In comparison to each party's total ballots in 2012 to this date, registered Democrats are 4.8 percent behind their same day totals, registered Republicans are 2.2 percent ahead, and registered unaffiliated voters are 35.5 percent ahead of their same-day totals from four years ago.

In looking at all absentee ballots by gender, women continue to be 56 percent of the ballots, with 48 percent of female voters registered Democrats, 29 percent registered Republicans, and 23 percent registered unaffiliated.

Among male voters, 38 percent are registered Democrats, 34 percent registered Republicans, and 27 percent registered unaffiliated.

In looking at all absentee voters so far by their racial classification and the voting method (mail-in versus in-person):

Of both methods of voting, whites are 72 percent, while blacks are 22 percent. In comparison to 2012's daily cumulative percentages by race, whites are over-performing (the green solid line over the green dotted line) while black voters are under-performing from four years ago (the orange solid line versus the orange dotted line).

The over-performance by white voters lead to me to do an interesting analysis last weekend to see the trends of white voters by their party registration. The next chart is the updated version of the past week of voting:

Compared to four years ago, white Republicans are performing at a lower percentage than they did four years ago, while white Democrats, having a slight over-performance for the past week, has leveled off to their 2012 pattern and white unaffiliated voters are continuing a strong pattern of over-performance. 

Accepted Ballots:

Of these 1.5 million ballots, the first pass is to determine which of these mail-in and in-person absentee ballots have been reviewed and "accepted" by the boards of elections as votes for the November 8 general election. Among the two voting methods (mail-in and in-person):

Among this 1.5 million ballots, the returned and accepted absentee ballots total 1,454,186 of both mail-in and in-person voting methods:

With the party registration among the two methods of absentee voting again showing partisan differences:

Accepted Absentee In-Person Ballots:

In comparison to the same day cumulative totals for all in-person accepted absentee ballots, this year's in-person absentee ballots are running eight percent ahead of where they were in 2012.

In terms of party registration of accepted in-person absentee ballots compared to four years ago:

Registered Democrats are five percent behind their 2012 same day totals, registered Republicans are 12 percent ahead of their same day totals, and registered unaffiliated voters are beating both partisans in performance, at 39 percent ahead of their 2012 same day totals.

Isolating this last week plus of in-person absentee ballots:

And then the party percentages of each day (days 9-17) and comparing 2012's to 2016's:

Next, in looking at race within party registration of the absentee accepted in-person ballots:

and comparing the 2012 daily percentages by race:

If black voters are going to turn out, then historically this week will be the key weekend to test whether they do in comparison to 2012's daily percentages. 

Next, if this year's accepted in-person absentee voters were registered in 2012, what method did they vote by?

Next, a common set of analyses I do based on region (urban, suburban, and rural county voters), native vs. those born outside of North Carolina, and generation cohorts, all by party registration:

Absentee by Mail-In Ballots:

The second method of voting absentee in North Carolina is by mail. The cumulative total accepted absentee mail-in ballots for this year is running behind 2012's same day totals; this year's total is only 83 percent of where the totals stood four years ago:

As noted above, the party registration break-down is 41 percent Republican, 33 percent Democratic, and 26 percent unaffiliated.

Registered Republicans, however, are significantly behind their 2012 same-day totals in this voting method:

Registered Republicans are only 64 percent of where they were four years ago on this same day (down nearly 23,000 accepted absentee mail-in ballots), while registered Democrats are 98 percent of where they were four years ago and registered unaffiliated voters are 111 percent of where they were in 2012 on the same day. 

The outstanding ballots broken down by party registration is:

Some New Analyses:

Finally, I was interested in two areas of analysis: first, the 'propensity' of this year's absentee ballot voters and if they participated in past elections, and second, the rise of the unaffiliated voter in this early voting. 

First, I took the voting records and matched the current absentee voter pool against whether they had voted in the past four general elections (2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014), and then broke it down by party registration:

Of this year's absentee ballot voters (all at this point and both mail-in & in-person), 46 percent of the voters had participated in the past four elections by casting ballots. In isolating just those voters who have voted in-person so far:

Nearly half (49 percent) of all voters who have cast accepted absentee in-person ballots so far participated in the past four general elections. I then ran the same analysis but for only the past two presidential elections (2008 and 2012):

Finally, I was interested in the rise of the unaffiliated voter and if they had participated in the state's March 2016 presidential primary election in one of the two party primaries (in North Carolina, unaffiliated voters can select which party they wish to vote in during a primary election).

Out of 391K unaffiliated voters who have cast any type of absentee ballot so far, 50 percent of them cast ballots in the March 2016 primary election: of those 55 percent cast ballots in the Republican primary, while 45 percent cast in the Democratic primary. 

The following charts present both the raw numbers and in percentages by generational cohort:

If one considers this a 'crude' proxy for how unaffiliated voters may be breaking, one could read into that unaffiliated voters might be breaking slightly to the Republican side. But there are a LOT of factors that could make this a very weak form of a proxy to see how these unaffiliated voters are breaking, let along there's another nearly 200K voters who didn't vote in the March 2016 primary and thus no indication. 

Over Half-A-Million Absentee Ballots Requested in NC

With the second full day of absentee by in-person voting and concluding the sixth week of absentee by mail-in voting, over 500,000 ballots have been requested, with over 381,000 accepted as votes for the November 8th general election.

Among the total ballots requested for both in-person and mail-in:

Among those ballots returned and accepted:

For the total ballots and different voting methods, the party registration breaks down as:

In comparison to four years ago, the total number of absentee ballots (both mail-in and in-person) is down about 3 percent (501,651 compared to 2012's cumulative total of 513,188 on the same day out from Election Day), but there are significant shifts in party registration numbers within those totals.

Registered Republicans are down 15 percent from their same day numbers, while registered Democrats are down six percent. However, registered unaffiliated voters are up 27 percent from their same day totals over four years ago. 

The overall absentee by in-person voting method numbers are:

Among the accepted absentee by in-person voting method, the first two days worth of ballots is slightly below where the second day in 2012 stood, down about 2 percent (157,395 in 2012 compared to 152,778 this year).

For comparison to the party registration of absentee in-person voting to 2012:

On day 2 of this year's in-person early voting, 49 percent came from registered Democrats, 27 percent from registered Republicans, and 24 percent from registered unaffiliated voters. Cumulatively so far, registered Democrats are 51 percent of the early in-person ballots, registered Republicans are 26 percent, and registered unaffiliated voters are 23 percent. In comparison to the same day in 2012 totals, registered Democrats are down 10 percent, registered Republicans are down 6 percent, and registered unaffiliated voters are up 28 percent. 

In looking at the total in-person ballots by race:

In comparison to the final numbers in 2012 early in-person balloting, white voters are a greater percentage than they were four years ago, while black voters are down from their 2012 same-day numbers:

Among the voters who have cast in-person early ballots, the following shows their 2012 voting method and if they were registered in 2012 or after:

In looking at gender by party registration of the early in-person ballots:

Among the early in-person ballots, 55 percent are from female voters, with registered Democrats being 60 percent, registered Republicans 23 percent, and registered unaffiliated being 21 percent.

Among the generations for these early in-person voters and their party registration:

A majority of North Carolinian registered voters indicate that they were born out of state versus being native to the state, and the trend is reflected in the early in-person ballots so far as well:

Finally, urban county voters are a majority of the in-person early ballots cast, with registered Democrats dominating that region of the state:

Among absentee mail-in ballots, we are at the end of the sixth week of those method of absentee/early voting, with nearly 183,000 ballots requested and over 63,000 ballots returned and accepted for votes.

Among the requested ballots, 40 percent are registered Republicans, 31 percent registered Democrats, 28 percent registered unaffiliated, and less than one percent are registered Libertarians.

In comparison to four years ago on the same day, this year's mail-in ballots are at 79 percent of the total, with significant differences among party registration in comparison to 2012's trend lines:

The racial composition of those NC voters requesting mail-in ballots is predominately white:

Among the returned and accepted mail-in ballots so far:

While registered Republicans are running ahead in accepted ballots, they are significantly behind their 2012 same-day numbers (59 percent of where they were on the same day in 2012), while registered Democrats are even with their 2012 same-day numbers and registered unaffiliated voters (at 107 percent) are ahead of their same-day 2012 numbers.

Finally, the outstanding mail-in ballots are still favoring registered Republicans: