North Carolina early voting surge comes after long fight
GREENSBORO, N.C. — As Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama campaigned together Thursday for the first time in North Carolina, early voting in the presidential battleground state appeared likely to surge beyond 2012 levels with the rollout of more polling sites after a protracted battle on voting access.
Through the first seven days of early voting, around 1 million ballots were cast — roughly on par with the same period in the last presidential election. But the number of early polling places was increasing statewide from around 250 to nearly 400 on Thursday, and political experts expected a resulting rise in ballots.
“Once those sites open up and people start utilizing those, we should see a pretty significant jump,” said Michael Bitzer, a professor at Catawba College.
The uneven rollout of early voting sites came after a federal appeals court ruled the GOP-controlled state legislature illegally sought to boost its advantage with ballot access rules intended to discriminate against minorities, who predominantly vote Democratic.