2020 Election: NC Absentee Ballot Requests Up 11 Times Over 2016

NORTH CAROLINA — The number of registered voters in North Carolina seeking to cast their ballot by mail in the upcoming presidential election is up about 11 times the number of absentee ballot requests made in 2016, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

As of Sept. 30, state election officials reported 1,116,696 absentee ballots requests, representing about 16 percent of all North Carolina registered voters. During the same time in September 2016, election officials had received 111,982 requests for absentee ballots.

State election officials began sending out the ballots to voters on Friday, Sept. 4. Since that time, 280,353 ballots have been returned to election officials.

Interest in voting by mail amid the ongoing pandemic has skyrocketed in North Carolina and around the U.S. About 60 percent of voters want to vote early, according to a recent Washington Post-University of Maryland poll.

As of Wednesday, the number of known cases of COVID-19 in North Carolina rose to 210,632, an increase of nearly 1,500 additional lab-confirmed cases in the span of a day, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

SEE ALSO: Vote-By-Mail Survey: NC Voters Nervous Ballots Won't Be Counted

Here's what NCSBE says about the cast absentee ballots as of Sept. 30:

Number of Ballots Requested By Voter Party Affiliation

• Democrats — 540,520
• Republican — 204,358
• Unaffiliated — 366,677
• Libertarian — 4,213
• Constitution — 309
• Green — 619

Ballots Cast By Party

• Democrats — 53.57 percent
• Republican — 16.64percent
• Unaffiliated — 29.49 percent
• Libertarian — 0.23 percent
• Constitution — 0.02 percent
• Green — 0.04 percent

Ballots Cast By Race

• White — 73.04 percent
• Black — 16.11 percent
• Other — 10.85 percent

Ballots Cast By Gender

• Female — 53.05 percent
• Male — 42.18 percent
• Undesignated — 4.77 percent