Early voting in NC

North Carolina has extended its early voting deadline to 5 PM Saturday. Palin will be speaking in Raleigh at 4 PM on Saturday. So far about a third of registered North Carolinians have voted. Personally I feel that early voting shouldn’t be used. Early voting means that not everyone is voting with the same information (for example, how would it change people’s votes if another terrorist attack ocurred on American soil on Nov. 3?). Furthermore, even if official results aren’t released, exit polls might influence people from voting for a particular candidate if exit polling shows that the candidate has lower chances than expected.

-A.G.

Early Voting in North Carolina

Early voting began in North Carolina last week.  While the actual votes will not be tabulated until Election Day, it is possible to observe some trends from initial early voting turnout data.

For instance, over 52% of early voters in North Carolina are registered Democrats, while only 29% are registered Republicans.  This would suggest that democrats are more excited about voting this year than republicans.  On the other hand, when the data is broken into age groups, young people are least likely to vote early: only 13.2% of early voters are in the 18-29 age group, the smallest turnout of any age group.  It is widely held that Senator Obama needs the youth vote, especially in a battleground state like North Carolina.  Of course, Obama won’t need the youth vote if McCain doesn’t get any age groups to vote for him.