More North Carolinians voted early this year than in the past two midterm primary elections, with about 9% of the state’s registered voters, or 700,000, making their way to the polls in the two-and-a-half weeks before Election Day.
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Hotly contested local races for sheriff, commissioners and education boards seemed to drive much of the turnout. Voters across the state also decided on party nominees for the general election in state legislative races, congressional races and other local contests for mayors, district attorneys and judges.
Primary election early voter turnout
Typically, primary election turnout is low, especially during midterm election years. In the 2018 and 2022 primaries, 14% and 20% of North Carolinians showed up, respectively, including those who voted on the primary election day.
Early voters have made up an increasingly large share of that turnout in recent years. In 2018, 4.1% of registered voters cast their ballots early. Four years later, 7.7% voted early in the 2022 primary.
This year surpassed those figures; 700,639 registered voters cast ballots during in-person early voting, and an additional 11,351 cast absentee by-mail ballots.
Together, early voters made up 9.24% of all registered voters. That’s nearly as high as early voting turnout for the 2024 presidential election, which was 9.36%, according to State Board of Elections data.
Bertie County Election Director Latoya Peele said one reason for more early voters in this year’s primary election is more citizens realize that they need to make their voices heard than before.
According to a Carolina Public Press analysis of State Board data, 19% of registered voters in Bertie County had voted early, the second-highest county turnout proportion in the state.
In the county, Republican primary election voters got to weigh in on an open NC Senate seat, vacated by Sen. Bobby Hanig, and a high-profile U.S. House primary including Hanig and his main challenger, Laurie Buckhout.
“It’s been very contentious, and my meetings have been fairly busy,” said Bertie County Republican Party Chair Tuesday Sauer. “People are interested, definitely, and they’re talking.”
However, Sauer said the Democratic primary election contests in the county’s sheriff and commissioner races were probably the biggest turnout drivers. In both cases, an incumbent is being challenged.
Regardless, Peele was excited to hear that her staff’s hard work of voter outreach seems to be paying off.
“It looks like everybody now knows the importance of voting, and that does show that we are doing our job as election officials to get the word out to voters in the county so they know about the voting process,” she said.
All the way across the state in Mitchell County, more than a quarter of registered voters turned out for early voting, the highest proportion of all counties.
Mitchell County Elections Director Roycene Jones credited the local races for sheriff and county commissioner for the interest.
Shane Vance and Cecil Hobson Jr., who both work for the retiring sheriff, are making their case to replace him after 43 years. It’s a passing of the torch, Vance said.
“It’s pretty much the future,” he said. “For the younger generation, for the prison, it’s just going to be a major change having a new sheriff.”
Both candidates are focused on addressing drug operations in the community, and have different strategies for doing so. Vance said the county residents are very in tune with the race, particularly on social media.
Hobson said he’s not surprised at the turnout because Mitchell County voters are “very devoted to doing their civic duty.”
In Surry County, elections director Sydney Romine thinks the number of sites may have increased early voting turnout — 18% of the county’s registered voters. The county board settled on four sites this primary, which is the highest they’ve done in recent years; typically, they switch between two, three and four, Romine said.
“That made it pretty easy for voters to get out and not have to drive far to cast their ballot, even during early voting,” she said.
As in other counties, the sheriff and commissioner races are popular, Romine said. There’s also an open state legislative race to replace outgoing State Rep. Sarah Stevens, who is running for NC Supreme Court.
It’s a higher turnout than 2022, Romine said.
But perhaps the largest increase in early voting turnout is in Rockingham County, where there’s a series of contested local races: the NC Senate race between Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and Rockingham Sheriff Sam Page, a board of commissioners seat, Democratic and Republican sheriff primaries and an at-large board of education seat. About 16% of the county’s registered voters cast ballots.
Rockingham County Elections Director Paula Seamster said early voting totals surpassed early voting turnout in the 2024 presidential primary two days before early voting ended in February.
“More people are just finally realizing that the primary election is just as important as the general election,” she said. “A lot of the people coming out have never voted during the primary.”
Other counties with above-average turnouts included Graham County (18% of registered voters), Macon County (17%), Northampton County (16%), Clay County (16%) and Chatham County (16%).
Some questions, but relatively smooth sailing
There wasn’t much drama to report during the primary election early voting process, according to several county election directors’ experiences.
But a bit of voter confusion did occur surrounding a letter the State Board of Elections sent out to 241,000 voters in recent weeks.
The letter asked voters for their driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers in order to fill out missing information on their voter records. Many of the voters sent letters registered to vote before 2004, when the federal Help America Vote Act required states to collect these identification numbers when registering people to vote.
Voters who do not provide the information are still allowed to vote — a distinction from voters impacted by the Registration Repair Project who lack certain identification numbers due to a faulty registration form.
Several county directors noted questions about both efforts, and confusion about why they’re being asked for certain information. But generally, once they explain the situation, voters are more than happy to oblige, county directors said.
“Once we explain everything to them, they’re fine, and they fill out the paperwork, and we get all the information we need to update our system, and they vote,” Seamster said.
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