In my last election-preview piece, I mentioned the “drop-off” effect, the difference between the number of votes cast at the top of the ballot, for president or governor, and the vote totals for Council of State or appellate judge.
On Tuesday, some 2 million voted in North Carolina’s presidential primaries. About 1.6 million voted in the lowest-participation primary for appeals court. That’s about a 23 percent drop-off, fairly close to average.
By the way, I’ve also been running numbers on voter turnout and registration growth this cycle. My “Daily Journal” column on Monday will lay out my findings, but here’s a teaser: North Carolina is not experiencing a particularly large increase in voter registration by historical standards. It appears to be a bit below average, actually.
