Early Voting is very popular in North Carolina and the evidence shows it doesn’t inherently favor Democrats or Republicans (see reports here and here). But in the current hyper-partisan environment, disputes over the location and hours of Early Voting sites are too often turning into a power struggle instead of a rational discussion about sensible [...]
A report released today reveals that North Carolina has 115,000 registered Latino voters or nearly 25,000 more than the official count at the State Board of Elections (which only began asking voters their ethnicity in 2002). That's a 35% increase over the number in October 2008. In addition, the report says another 100,000 unregistered Latino [...]
Only 3.6% of registered North Carolina voters cast ballots in the runoff election on July 17. That's about one-tenth of the already miserable turnout rate for the May primary - 34.7%. FairVote's analysis of the runoff notes that more North Carolinians believe in fairies and vampires than voted in July. The losers in the primary received far more votes [...]
Check out this video of slam master Bluz of Charlotte rapping on more than you hear at first listen; it begins 1 minute into the video, after Robert Dawkin’s introduction. Thanks to the Democracy Summer team in Charlotte for hosting the “Shade of Democracy” event – a “fusion of art and activism.”
Click here to read part one. After an exhausting week of interviews, I found myself rising early Saturday morning to volunteer at the "Juneteenth" festival in Durham. Excited to have an opportunity to "Get Out the Vote," I set up my table four full hours before the festival started, hoping to catch people who were [...]
Hello all! My name is Erin Sweeney and I am a student intern doing a summer research project for Democracy North Carolina. I’m working out of Democracy NC’s headquarters in Durham. It may surprise some of you that Democracy NC does not have a fulltime organizer for the Triangle; the main office serves more as [...]
Follow-up on HAVA funds: The NC General Assembly continues to hear about the importance of including roughly $650,000 in the state budget in order to free up $4.1 million in federal money for operating our elections system. The federal money from the Help America Vote Act will pay for voting machine maintenance, poll worker training, Early [...]
The State Board of Elections posted a database of voters participating in One-Stop Early Voting. Here are some observations about who voted during the Early Voting phase of the 2012 primary election. See data for all 100 counties on this spread-sheet: http://democracyncarchive.org/downloads/EarlyVoteRegisTurnoutPrim2012.xls ● One-Stop Early Voting ended Saturday, May 5th, with a record turnout of North Carolina [...]
Hey, check out this blog posting from Beth Messersmith of MomsRising. Maybe it will bring back fond memories or introduce you to timely resources for this election – plus, it describes a kids/family friendly event this Saturday. Another mother called Democracy NC today to let us know she was given the wrong ballot by the election [...]
You may be surprised by the names you see on the ballot in this election – especially if you’re among the millions of North Carolina voters with new General Assembly and Congressional districts. You may even get the wrong ballot – but how will you know!?! Be prepared – preview YOUR ballot before you vote; learn [...]