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Henderson County's turnout reaches 65 percent

Sada Hackett of East Flat Rock votes at the Henderson County Board of Elections on Saturday as her son, Khiel, waits.

 When early voting ended at 3 o'clock Saturday afternoon, Henderson County's voter turnout stood at 64.5 percent, a record for voting before Election Day. Across the state, 4.53 million voters had cast ballots — 1.4 million more than in 2016. This most extraordinary of election seasons capped the early voting period with a stunning statistic: Turnout of Democratic and Republican party voters was exactly the same, at 64.71 percent.

Across the state, 1.7 million Democrats voted compared to 1.43 million Republicans and 1.37 million independents, according to N.C. Board of Elections statistics.

The breakdown for early voting at four polling places in Henderson County was 7,291 in Etowah, 9,912 in Fletcher, 5,484 in Flat Rock and 18,911 at the Board of Elections on East Central Street, in the unofficial tally provided by the elections board on Saturday. Including mail-in absentee voting, the total number of votes cast or received stands at 56,411. That number will grow because the U.S. Supreme Court turned back a Republican Party challenge of the decision by the N.C. Board of Elections to count mail-in absentee ballots received by Nov. 12.

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