Politics

COUNTY'S EARLY VOTING — LIKE STATE'S — SPIKES BY 70 PERCENT

Voters enter the Board of Elections to cast ballots on Friday, Nov. 2.

By Bill Moss, Published: November 4, 2018

Nearly 30 percent of Henderson County’s registered voters cast ballots during the early voting period that ended at 1 p.m. Saturday, far surpassing the number of early votes cast the last mid-term election.

In Henderson County, 25,469 of the county’s 85,819 voted during the 17-day early voting period — a 29.7 percent turnout. The number of early voters was 69.5 percent more than the 16,997 cast in the 2014 election.

In 2014, the overall voter turnout including Election Day was 46.5 percent and in 2016, a presidential and gubernatorial election year, 71 percent of the county’s voters cast ballots.

The high turnout comes even as North Carolina has a "blue moon" election, when there is no gubernatorial or U.S. Senate race on the ballot.
Henderson County’s voter enthusiasm reflected the statewide trend. As of 3:30 p.m. Saturday, more than 2 million voters had cast ballots early in North Carolina, a 73 percent increase over 2014 early voting totals (1,174,184), the Board of Elections reported. That’s a turnout rate of 28.6 percent so far. Final turnout statewide in 2014 (including Election Day), was 44.4 percent. The state’s numbers were not final and were likely to go up because some counties had not reported final numbers.
“We believe the strong early voting turnout, as well as Saturday’s long lines at some sites, are signs that voters are engaged in 2018,” Patrick Gannon, public information officer for the State Board of Elections & Ethics Enforcement, said in a news release. “We hope this excitement continues on Election Day.”