In the two days of early voting, over half a million registered voters have already voted. According to State Board of Elections as of Oct. 17 there are 461,048 votes in person and 40,273 are absentee ballots casted.
In Jackson County, 1,829 people voted in person during the first two days. The Board has approved 140 absentee ballots so far and Amanda Allen, director of the JCBOE said they will look 18 more during the regular meeting of the Board tomorrow afternoon. These meetings are open for public if you are interested in observing.
The largest number of voters is at the county Board of Election office, but the largest jump in voters was in the new voting site on WCU campus, Health and Human Science Building or HHS.
Political science professor and expert on elections, Dr. Chris Cooper, in his analysis on says the new site has seen a massive increase in turnout compared to 2022 (the last midterm election) when the WCU site was at the University Center.
“What’s massive? How about a 353% increase—from 75 to 340!” wrote Cooper.
Out of the five sites for early voting only the Cullowhee Recreation Center is down.
In person early voting in North Carolina is up about 32%.
This is sure the case for Jackson County.
“Things are going well. We have steady turnout and eager voters,” Allen wrote in an email confirming so far there were no issues or problems at any of the voting sites in the county.
In Cooper analysis HHS site is also seeing younger voters coming in although not as young as one would expect. The average age of voters who voted at HHS is around 55 years old. Only 12% thus far are 22 or younger. In all other sites the average age of voters is over 65 years.
Let’s hope this changes when the students come back to campus this week.
See the full analysis and more at Cooper’s Anatomy of a Purple State substack.
