(The Center Square) – North Carolina is the first battleground state to begin the voting process, sending out absentee by mail ballots on Friday.
Delaware is also first in the nation with a law of “60 days before Election Day.”
The number of days ahead of the election to send out absentee by mail ballots in the other consensus battleground states is 50 in Pennsylvania, 47 in Wisconsin, 45 in Michigan, 25 to 29 in Georgia, and 24 to 27 in Arizona. In Nevada, it is not specified.
The seven states represent 93 electoral college votes among them. Pennsylvania has 19, North Carolina and Georgia 16 each, Michigan 15, Arizona 11, Wisconsin 10 and Nevada six.
North Carolinians are 44 days away from in-person early voting. Election Day is 63 days away.
Same-day registration is available in North Carolina during the early in-person voting period; otherwise, the registration deadline is Oct. 11.
As voters continued to register on the last week of summer’s unofficial end, trends of the last 20 years did not change. There are 11,793 more voters than the week before, with Democrats 1,205 fewer; Republicans 2,622 more; and unaffiliated up 6,772.
On Jan. 1, 2004, the state’s more than 5 million registered voters were split 47.6% Democrats, 34.4% Republicans and 17.7% unaffiliated. Through Saturday, it’s 37.6% unaffiliated, 31.6% Democrats and 29.9% Republicans.
On Election Day four years ago, Democrats still had 35.6% of the more than 7.3 million registered, with unaffiliated at 33.3% and Republicans 30.3%. At the 2022 midterms, it had swung to 35.6% unaffiliated, 33.7% Democrats and 30% Republicans.
Of the parties that petitioned to get ballot access this summer, registrations are 255 for We The People Party, 86 for Constitution Party, and zero for Justice For All Party. The latter gained access by three Fayetteville residents filing and winning litigation against the State Board of Elections.
Other parties voters can register with, or run as candidates for, are the Green, Libertarian and No Labels. The nearly 50,000 Libertarians are the most of those three, with No Labels at better than 17,000 and the Green at just under 3,000.