February 18, 2008

Bad news, good news

Posted at 1:12 PM by Rob Schofield

Bob Hall at Democracy North Carolina has some new data on Tar Heel voting trends.

First the bad news:

A new county-by-county analysis of voting shows that at least 2.5 million North Carolinians – two out of every five adult citizens – have not cast a ballot in the past eight years. 

'They didn't vote in the 2000 or 2004 presidential elections or anytime else,' said Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina, a Durham-based watchdog group. 'Most of them are registered to vote and just never show up, but about one million are not even registered.'"

Now the good:

Two of the largest groups of missing voters – 660,000 African Americans and 760,000 young adults age 18 to 24 – could be especially energized to participate in the May 6 presidential primary, if the pattern of other primary states holds true. 

With that many possible first-time voters, election officials are bracing for a record turnout.

'If the current trends continue, and all indications are that they will, North Carolina could easily exceed the normal range of 16% to 31% turnout [of registered voters] in the primary election and possibly exceed a 50% turnout,' Gary Bartlett told county election officials in a memo last week.  Bartlett, executive director of the State Board of Elections, announced two grant programs to help counties equip and operate additional One-Stop Early Voting sites for the primary.

Bartlett also said that about 64,000 people registered to vote in the first six weeks of 2008, indicating a surge in voter interest. Thirty percent of the new registrants are under age 25."

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