What the numbers say
Early votes by days before Election Day
Cumulative statewide accepted ballots, by the date each ballot was cast (one-stop) or accepted (mail). 2026 in bold; prior cycles aligned to the same days-out. Rebuilt day by day from NCSBE's per-voter files, so there are no gaps and no interpolation.
Ballots added per day: last 7 days
2026 bars (one-stop + mail). Dashed line = 2024 on the same days-out, for scale. One-stop early voting began Oct 15, 2026.
Same day of early voting
Cumulative one-stop votes by day of the early-voting period (day 1 = first day of one-stop), which lines up the different start dates.
Who has voted: registered party
Share of early ballots by voter's current registration (NC has party registration: DEM, REP, UNA = unaffiliated, plus LIB/GRE/others) at the same days-out.
Who has voted: race & ethnicity
Share of early ballots (one-stop + mail) by race/ethnicity the voter self-reported on their registration, at the same days-out. Hispanic = any race; 2018's file has no ethnicity field, so 2018 Hispanic voters fall under their recorded race.
Race & ethnicity: each recent day
Share of the ballots added on each of the last 7 days in 2026. Dots = 2024 Black share on the same days-out, for comparison.
How 2026 early voters voted in 2024
Each bar = everyone who has voted early (one-stop + mail) through the same days-out, split by how that voter cast a ballot in the previous general. 2026 voters vs 2024; 2022 voters vs 2020, for comparison. Party = registration on the ballot file.
Who has voted: voting history
Share of early ballots by how many of the last 4 general elections the voter took part in (2026: 2018–2024; 2022: 2014–2020), at the same days-out.
Who's still left: registered voters not yet voted
Registered voters (active + inactive) who haven't cast an accepted 2026 ballot yet, by number of the last 4 generals voted (2018–2024) and party.
Turnout so far by voting history
How it's built: NCSBE's weekly statewide voter registration and voter history files are matched to the daily absentee/one-stop file by NCID (the state's permanent voter ID). Voters who registered after the last general are shown as "new since 2024" (or "new since 2020"). Voter history covers voters later removed from the rolls, so the 2022 comparison includes them. Only aggregate counts are published.
Data coverage & gaps
Sources & caveats
- One-stop = in-person early voting (ballot type "EARLY VOTING" in 2026, "ONE-STOP" in earlier files), accepted ballots only, counted on the day cast. Mail = mail ballots accepted (including cured), counted on the return date.
- Past-cycle files are the final post-election versions. Ballots later spoiled or rejected, or from voters since removed, can differ slightly from what was reported live at that time.
- Party and race/ethnicity are as recorded in each file (a voter's registration then). NC asks race and ethnicity as optional, self-reported questions on the registration form; many voters leave them blank ("undesignated"), so the undesignated slice is real, not missing data. Unaffiliated voters are now the largest NC group, so D/R shares alone understate turnout among UNA.
- The 2026 file currently lists only ballots that have been returned or cast, so outstanding mail requests are not available for 2026 and mail requests are not compared.
- Days-out = Election Day minus the date the ballot was cast. The state's file is posted early each morning and runs through the previous day.
Law changes that affect comparisons
North Carolina's rules changed in 2023–2024, so 2018 and 2022 were run under different rules than 2026.
- 2023 · Senate Bill 747 (S.L. 2023-140): mail ballots must arrive by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day; the old 3-day grace period for postmarked ballots ended (military/overseas excepted). Same-day registrants during early voting now cast a "retrievable" ballot that can be pulled if address verification fails. NC General Assembly bill summary · bill text
- Photo ID has been required since the 2024 primaries (not in place in 2018 or 2022). NC State Board of Elections