Early voting closed on Saturday, and North Carolina shattered records. More than 4.4 million voters cast ballots, or 57% of the 7.8 million registered voters in the state. This is far ahead of the 3.6 million ballots cast during early voting in the 2020 election.

These numbers indicate that approximately 1.2 million ballots have been cast since Tuesday when almost 3.2 million voters have cast ballots. This puts early voting at 40%, more than 10% higher than Tuesday.

Of these 4.4 million ballots cast during early voting, 4.2 million were in-person. Accounting for the numbers through Thursday, 3.7 million ballots were cast in person, and approximately 4 million were cast overall statewide. 

“I am proud of all of our 100 county boards of elections and the thousands of election workers who are making this happen in their communities,” Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections (NCSBE), said in a press release. “And I am especially proud of the workers and voters of Western North Carolina. You are an inspiration to us all.”

In the 25 counties impacted by Hurricane Helene, voter turnout is far outpacing the rest of the state, with turnout at 58.9%, about 2% higher than the rest of the state.

However, black voter turnout has been significantly down since 2020. Black voters account for 19.65% of registered voters, according to data from NCSBE. While the number of black voters is at 769,629, up slightly from 2020 ( 750,461), the percentage is down slightly from 20.68 percent to 18.28 percent. When compared to the 2008 election, which was the last time that the Democratic Party won the state, black voters accounted for 28.42 percent at 685,194. According to data from the Pew Research Center, 92% of black non-Hispanic voters cast their ballot for Biden in 2020.

Fewer young registered Democrat voters voted early this time around. Compared to 2020, the Democratic vote among young voters is down by 37,000, whereas the young Republican vote is up by 1,600 votes.

“The Republican Party and its allies ran a ‘bank your vote’ campaign to encourage their voters to vote earlier,” Dr. Andy Jackson, Director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity at the John Locke Foundation, told the Carolina Journal. “It appears to have been at least partially effective since pre-election turnout increased for Republicans by about 30,000 compared to 2020. The rise in unaffiliated early and absentee was even more impressive at over 110,000. However, the big story is the decline in Democratic voters. They are down about 266,000 compared to the same point in 2020. Relatedly, some traditional Democratic-lean demographics, young people, and black voters are down from 2020.”

While election night results are always unofficial, NCSBE anticipates that the unofficial results reported at the end of election night will account for about 98 percent of all ballots cast in the election. Ballots not counted on Election Day will include absentee ballots received on Election Day, military and overseas ballots received between 5 pm on Election Day and Nov 14th, certain absentee ballots in the 25 counties impacted by Helene, and all provisional ballots. Polls close at 7:30 pm on election night. More information on the vote-counting process in NC can be found here.