It’s Election Day in North Carolina and even before the polls opened at 6:30 a.m. this morning 87,595 people had already voted in the June 7, 2016 special primary election.
Civitas Institute’s interactive NC Vote Tracker, at www.ncvotetracker.com, will help you visualize the voter turnout in this and past elections. NC Vote Tracker features turnout in graphs and numbers. The data found in NC Vote Tracker is derived from the State Board of Elections and is uploaded into our user-friendly site.
According to the NC Vote Tracker, 73,492 voters have voted at in-person, early voting sites (one-stop sites) and the rest of the early voters (14,103) voted by mail.
In turnout numbers, Democrats outnumber Republicans, if only slightly. A total of 35,890 Democrats have voted early in the June 7 primary. Democrats, who make up 40.2 percent of the total eligible voters in North Carolina, make up 40.9 percent of the turnout thus far. While Republicans only make up 30.4 percent of the total eligible voters in North Carolina, they comprise 38 percent of the total turnout in the early voting numbers – 33,294. These numbers indicate Republicans are more motivated to turn out in an election that may determine many of the state’s Congressional races.
With only 18,364 unaffiliated voters voting early, this group of voters seem to be the least enthusiastic set of voters this election. While unaffiliated voters make up 28.6 percent of the total eligible voters in North Carolina, they make up only 20.9 percent of early voters.
According to NC Vote Tracker females (47,266) made up 53.9 percent of early voting turnout and males (39,803) made up 45.4 percent of the overall early voting turnout.
Mecklenburg County had the highest number of voters (12,169), while Wake County was a distant second with only 6,693 people voting early.
It stands to reason that the Congressional races would be the contests to watch this election since Congressional races and a North Carolina Supreme Court Associate Justice race are on most voters’ ballots across North Carolina. NC Vote Tracker show that the highest turnout in a congressional district is District 13, where 9,031 voters have voted early. It’s worth noting that the Republican Primary in District 13 includes 17 candidates and the Democrats have five candidates on their ballot in the same district. Congressional District 12 has the next highest turnout at 8,249 voters. One-term incumbent Alma Adams has five challengers in her first re-election for Congress campaign.
Today, the polls are open from 6:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. and all registered voters (who haven’t already voted) can cast a ballot in their county precincts. The June 7 primary came about after a federal court ordered the legislature to redraw the Congressional map drawn in 2011. That map was approved by the U.S. Justice Department and the North Carolina Supreme Court and used in the 2012 and 2014 elections.
While the legislature redrew the map and submitted it before the court’s deadline, the map was not formally approved by the court before this special election.
Political pundits are predicting a turnout of anywhere from 5 to 10 percent for this election. Seeing that the turnout during early voting was 1.3 percent, even 5 percent total turnout may be a stretch.
For voter registration numbers and comparisons visit: http://www.carolinatransparency.com/voterregistration/
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