NC early voting turnout is down from 2020, in-person early voting up

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Lines are stretched around buildings and down streets at polling locations across the Cape Fear as early voting continues in North Carolina. The state broke the turnout record for the first day of in-person early voting.

On Wednesday, WWAY spoke with voters to find out why they decided to vote early this year.  

“I just wanted to get it done before election day. It’s a nice day out to stand in line and I’m doing my civic duty,” one voter in line said. 

“I was hoping there wouldn’t be quite the lines there are, but I hear they’re this way everywhere, which is really a good thing,” another voter added. 

“I figured, you know, the election day rush is usually pretty crazy, like to go ahead and get the vote cast. I travel a lot as well, so it was an easy process. They make it easy, so I thought we’d come out today and check it out,” one voter said. 

Despite the long lines, early voting turnout in North Carolina is actually down 37.4% when compared to 2020 and accounting for absentee early voting.

Political advisor and CFCC Instructor Nelson Beaulieu explains that drop shouldn’t be surprising due to the unprecedented use of mail-in ballots in 2020. 

“In every battleground state, it’s down, and down considerably. I would caution anybody to read much into that. 2020 we were dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, and a lot of people opted to vote early by mailing in a ballot and so we don’t have that this time,” Beaulieu said.

Beaulieu also noted that voting early can benefit your preferred candidate. In many states—including NC—campaigns can see who’s already voted, which allows them to focus on reaching people who haven’t voted yet. 

Although, Beaulieu said, early voting numbers won’t tell you who will win.  

“This is new information, right? Votes are coming in. This isn’t polls. So there is a natural tendency I think to figure out ‘well what can we decern? What can we extrapolate? How can we read these tea leaves, these new tea leaves that have just sprouted?’ and the truth is you really can’t. We don’t know who is actually showing up, let alone what they’re doing in the voting booth,” Beaulieu explained. 

If you’re interested in voting early, you can use the early voting sites search tool to find a polling location. 

If you haven’t already registered to vote, you can also participate in same-day voter registration at any early voting location.