On Sunday, October 20th, officials in North Carolina reported that over a million voters have cast their ballots in advance of the upcoming US election in the swing state, which was recently devastated by Hurricane Helene.
According to a press release from the North Carolina State Board of Elections, as of 4 p.m. on Sunday, which marked the fourth day of early voting in the state, more than 1 million voters had already participated in the 2024 US election.
The press release stated that a total of 1,008,123 ballots have been cast by North Carolina voters. Of these, 916,433 were in-person votes, 77,831 were civilian absentee votes, 11,168 were overseas absentee votes, and 2,691 were military absentee votes.
This voter turnout represents 13% of the nearly 7.8 million registered voters in North Carolina.
Karen Brinson Bell, the Executive Director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, expressed gratitude towards the county boards of elections and thousands of election workers statewide for their dedication to ensuring a smooth voting process. She thanked the community members involved in the ballot counting process.
The Board of Elections also noted that by the end of the previous Saturday, nearly 863,000 voters had cast their ballots in-person during the first three days of early voting, showing a 2.4% increase compared to the same period in 2020. In the 2020 election, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a significant number of voters opted for absentee voting in the initial days of early voting.
In North Carolina, in-person early voting will continue until November 2nd (Saturday), with voting locations and schedules varying by county. Election Day for this cycle is on November 5th.
North Carolina is a battleground state in the US presidential election. Following Hurricane Helene, Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, as well as former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, visited the affected areas in the state to meet with local residents and inspect post-disaster recovery efforts.