LOD: Voter Confusion Index

Democracy North Carolina today released a “Voter Confusion Index” that ranks the counties suffering the most complex changes as a result of redistricting. Most voters will go to the same precinct polling site where they voted in 2010, but their ballots will now have a different set of General Assembly and Congressional candidates because of district changes. Cumberland, Wayne, Durham, Pitt, and Pasquotank counties lead the list because they not only have new legislative and Congressional districts but the boundary lines for these districts slice through a large portion of the county’s precincts. That means neighbors going to the same precinct polling location will receive different ballots with a different set of candidates. The potential for confusion and poll-worker error increases with more split precincts and district changes – although mistakes, thankfully rare, can happen anywhere. More than twice as many precincts were split by the Republican redistricting plans than by any previous NC plan in history. The county-by-county chart for the Voter Confusion Index shows that only 15 of the state’s 100 counties survived the redistricting process with no precincts divided and no changes in their General Assembly or Congressional districts. Most of the 15 counties have heavily white populations and are in western NC or along the coast.