(The Center Square) — More than 135,000 North Carolinians cast their ballots during the first day of one-stop early voting Thursday, nearly matching the first-day turnout in 2018.
Voters cast a total of 135,391 one-stop ballots yesterday, or 1,063 shy of the first day of early in-person voting in 2018.
The votes came from 52,930 registered Democrats, 44,681 Republicans, 37,532 unaffiliated voters, 241 Libertarians and seven Green Party supporters. Those figures translate to 39% of the vote coming from Democrats, 33% from Republicans, about 28% from unaffiliated voters, and less than 1% for the other two parties combined.
Female voters accounted for 67,534 votes, while male voters cast 63,817 ballots and 4,040 were undesignated.
Analysis from Catawba College political science professor Michael Bitzer shows the early in-person voting was far less dominated by Democrats than the 51,490 absentee by mail ballots accepted to date, which include 49% from Democrats, 33% from unaffiliated voters, and about 17% from Republicans.
Out of the total of 186,881 votes cast through Thursday, 41.8% came from Democrats, 29.4% from unaffiliated voters, and 28.6% from Republicans. Libertarians have cast just 335 ballots and those registered with the Green Party have cast 10.
Gerry Cohen, former special counsel to the General Assembly and politics instructor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, broke down the ballots cast to date in a series of posts to Twitter on Friday.
The top 10 counties for votes cast through Thursday include 21,269 in Wake, 17,126 in Mecklenburg, 8,851 in Guilford, 7,494 in Forsyth, 6,853 in Durham, 6,692 in Buncombe, 4,777 in New Hanover, 4,537 in Brunswick, 4,213 in Cumberland, and 3,879 in Union.
Nearly 74% of votes cast came from white voters, while 18% came from black voters, 1.24% from Asian voters, 4.5% from “undesignated” voters, and 1.51% from “other” races, according to Cohen’s analysis.
In addition to the 135,391 one-stop ballots, another 4,146 mail-in ballots were also accepted on Thursday, which included 1,938 ballots from Democrats, 1,466 from unaffiliated voters, 731 from Republicans, and 11 from Libertarians.
Bitzer posted to Twitter a breakdown of all absentee votes by mail in 2022, compared to how those voters cast their ballots in 2018 and 2020. Of the 47% who voted one-stop in 2018 and absentee by mail in 2020, 54% came from Democrats, 35% from unaffiliated voters, and 10% from Republicans.
Another 25% voted absentee by mail in both prior elections, of which 46% were Democrats, 29% unaffiliated, and 24% Republicans. Fourteen percent voted on Election Day in 2018 and absentee by mail in 2020, which included 48% of votes from Democrats, 37% from unaffiliated, and 15% from Republicans.
The remaining 8% voted absentee one-stop in both 2018 and 2020, a group that was composed of 33% Democrats, 34% unaffiliated voters, and 32% Republicans.
Overall, total absentee by mail ballots accepted to date are nearly three times higher than the number of mail ballots accepted at the same point in the 2018 election, but about 12% of the total at this point in 2020.
