All five early polls are staying busy in Columbus County as more voters take advantage of one stop voting.
Of the county’s more than 37,000 registered voters, 8,592 – roughly 22 percent – have cast a ballot so far.
The five polling places are the Tabor City Courthouse; Ransom Center; Chadbourn municipal annex; and County Board of Elections office. Any voter may cast a ballot at a one stop location until Nov. 2. Voters must go to their home precinct on Election Day (Nov. 5)
The board of elections has consistently been the busiest early poll, as usual, with 4,084 ballots recorded as of close of business Wednesday. Fair Bluff has seen the lowest, with 454 so far this election. Voters have cast 1,492 ballots in Tabor City, 1,286 in Ransom, and 1,276 in Chadbourn.
This election cycle also included Sunday voting for the first time. A total of 4,304 ballots were registered Sunday.
While demographic and party turnout information are not available on the local level, observers have indicated that Columbus County is following the statewide trend toward more Republicans and unaffiliated voters turning out for early voting than in past elections. More than two million of the state’s 7.7 million registered voters have cast ballots, as opposed to 1.7 million at this point in the 2020 election cycle. Of those two million votes, 686,628 came from Republican voters; 683,265 Democrats, and 628,183 unaffiliated. Libertarians have cast 6,095, followed by 3,076 No Labels voters and smaller numbers of other parties. More women (1,045,333) than men (848,418) have voted, along with 114,415 whose gender was not specified.
