North Carolina exceeds 2.3 million early votes in 2024 general election

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RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – It’s been a record-breaking election season in North Carolina already, as more than 2.3 million people in the state have cast their ballots. Tens of thousands of those votes came out of western North Carolina, where concerns over voting came up immediately after Hurricane Helene devastated the area.

“At one point we thought we would need as many as 15 secure tents in the disaster areas. As of this morning, we believe there will only be a need for seven,” said Karen Brinson Bell, the executive director of the N.C. State Board of Elections.

As of Friday, in-person voter turnout is up by 0.5% overall in the 25 western North Carolina counties located in the Helene disaster area compared to 2020, according to the N.C. State Board of Elections. The 25-county area saw an increase of more than 23,100 ballots cast in person during the first eight days of early voting.

In 2020, 353,541 voters (28.8% of registered voters in that region) had cast ballots by this time, while 376,652 voters (29.3% of eligible voters in those counties) have gone to the polls so far in the 2024 election.

NCSBE officials said the vast majority of the 25 western North Carolina counties report a rise in early voting compared to the 2020 election.

Legislation passed on Thursday requires two western counties, McDowell and Henderson Counties, to add early voting sites to accommodate the number of voters. Brinson Bell says it’s on top of the already planned ones.

“As we came into early voting, there were 80 sites planned in these disaster-affected counties, and we were able to open 76 of the planned early voting sites,” she said.

With hundreds of people displaced after Hurricane Helene and temporarily living in other parts of the state, there are still ways to vote.

“You can still vote, but if you’re not going to be able to vote in your home county during the early voting period or on election day, you must act quickly,” Brinson Bell said. “You should request an absentee ballot now, and I do mean now, to be delivered to wherever you are staying temporarily.”

In the 25 Helene counties, election officials said overall voter turnout for all voting methods, in-person and absentee voting, is 30.8%, while the statewide overall turnout is 29.6%.

In 2020, the overall turnout in Helene counties was 38.1% at this point, while the statewide turnout was 37%. NCSBE officials cite the decline of overall ballots cast statewide due to the following factors:

• Absentee voting started two weeks later in 2024 than it did in 2020 due to a court order requiring ballots to be reprinted without Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name on them in the presidential contest.
• Many more people voted by mail in 2020 than ever before, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, 2024 turnout for in-person early voting and Election Day voting is expected to be higher in 2024 compared to 2020.

For those who haven’t registered yet, people can register and vote at the same time at any early voting site in their county while early voting is open. The early-voting period in North Carolina ends on Nov. 2.

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Deana Harley

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