Election day is still two months away, but North Carolina will begin mailing absentee ballots to some voters on Friday.

What You Need To Know

  • North Carolina will begin mailing absentee ballots to some voters on Friday

  • North Carolina is one of the first states to send out ballots

  • Absentee by mail voting grew substantially last presidential election

“We’ve got a state law that basically mandates this early dynamic when it comes to absentee by mail. Partly because we’ve got so many folks who are residents of North Carolina, but who are overseas, particularly in military bases,” Catawba College politics professor Michael Bitzer said.

Absentee by mail voting grew substantially last presidential election, from 4% in 2016 to 18% of votes cast in 2020.

While that increase was driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s a reminder of how many people now vote before election day.

A new Catawba College/YouGov survey found the majority of North Carolinians have confidence in absentee by mail voting, but there is a clear divide.

The survey found 13% of Democrats and 36% of independent voters lack confidence in absentee by mail voting being a secure way to cast a ballot in the state. That number rises to 62% for Republicans.

“I think that’s a direct result of what we’ve seen from the former president for a number of years, calling into question absentee by mail voting for example,” Bitzer said.

Former President Donald Trump helped to sow the distrust when he made unfounded attacks on early voting in 2020, an attempt to discredit President Joe Biden’s victory.

Trump’s campaign flipped the script this election, launching an initiative to encourage his supporters to use mail-in, absentee and in-person early voting in an effort to not miss out on votes.

Absentee by mail voting is separate from in-person early voting, which starts Oct. 17 in North Carolina. In the 2022 midterm elections more than half of votes in North Carolina were cast early, and in recent presidential elections that number was even higher.