Early voting in North Carolina is through the roof. As of close of business Friday, there had been 326,341 Democratic ballots cast (275,329 Democrats + 51,012 Unaffiliated), 72,280 GOP ballots (63,863 Republicans + 8417 unaffiliated) and 912 unaffiliated voters just voted the nonpartisan judicial ballot. Besides the presidential primaries, both parties have hot gubernatorial and local races and the Ds have a US Senate primary.
Early voting ended Saturday afternoon, but it is likely to be Monday before the final totals are in, but the totals are astounding. The highest number of votes ever cast in an NC presidential primary was 960,857 in 1984.
Based on the state maintained early voter database, of the Democratic ballots, 39.3% were cast by Black voters and 57.3% by whites. The remainder were American Indian, Asian, and other race categories. The cumulative black turnout rose by 0.5% yesterday, meaning the one day rise was far sharper. See my diary at http://www.dailykos.com/... for methodology and earlier numbers. Voter records include race because of the Voting Rights Act, enabling detailed analysis
37.7% of registered Democrats are black according to North Carolina State Board of Elections statistics, while of registered Democrats casting early votes so far, 43.2% are Black. Just 11.0% of unaffiliated voters are Black, but 18.1% of the unaffiliated voters casting early voting ballots are Black.
UPDATE
In addition to the through Friday totals reported in this diary, Mecklenburg County (Charlotte) has reported Saturday's total (final day) --6,267. (not broken down by party or race on their website) The Saturday total was for the three hours the polls were open. Friday had 9,453 for 8 hours, so this finished strong.
http://www.meckboe.org/...
UPDATE: Durham County total Saturday was 2,434 http://www.co.durham.nc.us/... -- for a total of over 20,000 early votes. Durham is the 2nd most liberal county in the state, with a majority of the registered Democrats Black, and many of the rest affiliated with Duke University. Notice from the stats that over 1,000 new voters registered at early voting sites just in Durham County (with no numbers yet for the last two days) under North Carolina's new law this year allowing late registration at early voting sites -- the voters cast their ballots at the same time. This is a very positive impact the contested primary will have torwards the fall election. campaign.http://ncleg.net/Sessions/2007/Bills/House/HTML/H91v6.html
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/3/181119/8785/4/508498
YES WE CAN!!!