Early mail-in ballot requests in NC higher than 2018, but far behind 2020
As the COVID-19 pandemic recedes, North Carolina voters are still more interested in voting by mail than they were before the pandemic. But they’re nowhere near as likely to vote by mail as they were during the height of the pandemic in 2020.
On Friday, the first day absentee ballots were being mailed out for the fall 2022 election, ballot requests in Wake County and statewide are noticeably higher than they were for the midterm election in 2018. But they’re still tracking closer to 2018 than 2020.
Statewide, North Carolina Board of Elections spokesman Patrick Gannon says they received 57,661 ballot requests this year before they even started mailing them out. That’s compared to 643,400 in 2020. However, it’s still substantially higher than 2018, when they had received just 11,743 requests at this point.
Wake County is seeing a similar swing. Elections director Gary Sims said his office sent out 10,944 ballots today. That’s about six times higher than the 1,642 requests Wake County had received at this point in 2018. However, on the first mailing day for the 2020 election, they had received closer to 143,000 requests — about 13 times higher than this year.
Due to the fact 2020 was a presidential election year, in addition to the pandemic, one would expect more ballot requests that year, Sims said. He doesn’t think 2022’s lower numbers are a sign of diminished voter interest.
“What I'm hearing, talking to people, officials and just members in the community, is that everybody's looking for a little bit of normal — what they consider normal — and they're wanting to go vote in person,” Sims said.
Sims expects record voter turnout in Wake County this fall, due in part to the fact that Raleigh is holding its first-ever even-year city elections in November as well.
“Wake County voters are always very energized,” Sims told WRAL News. “We not only have a really good voter registration population, but we also have higher turnout” than many other North Carolina counties, including Mecklenburg.
With the regular voter registration deadline just about a month away, Sims said this is the best time for voters who’ve recently moved to North Carolina or who’ve changed their address since they last voted here to update their registrations for this fall.
“Go ahead and get your stuff up to date,” Sims said. “You will get a new voter card in the mail. You'll also be able to look it up online, find your election-day polling place, your voting jurisdictions, and definitely take a look at that sample ballot. It's only going to help you whenever you get closer to the election.”
Important dates for the fall 2022 election:
- Oct. 14: Regular voter registration deadline for voters who want to vote on Election Day
- Oct. 20 through Nov. 5th: One-stop, in-person early voting
- Nov. 1: Absentee ballot request deadline
- Nov. 8: Election Day
