Record Voting Turnout in 2018 Midterm Elections
The midterm elections this year broke multiple records being the highest voter turnout in more than a century as well as the highest number for a midterm election in history. An estimated 113 million people participated in the 2018 midterm elections with nearly half of eligible voters participating.
Early voting turnout for the midterm elections was 74 percent higher than 2014 numbers in North Carolina with more than 2 million votes cast, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections. Those numbers mean that about 29 percent of the state’s voters voted early.
According to an online interview conducted by Statista, the top three issues among young voters, aged 18-21 years, were economic, security, and education. Other topics at hand were women’s issues, healthcare, energy and senior issues.
For the 2017-2018 year there were 134,168 residents recorded as living in Robeson County by Suburban Stats. Of those, the North Carolina State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement reports that there are 77,691 registered voters as of 2018. Cumberland County and Fayetteville area has a population of 319,431 while 220,701 of them are registered to vote.
That comes up to nearly 58 percent of Robeson County and 69 percent of Cumberland County are registered to vote.
While in the 2018 midterm elections only 14.7 percent of voters in Robeson county used early voting, as a whole North Carolina Elections officials have accepted more ballots from people who voted early in person during the first 12 days this election than during the full early voting period for the 2014 midterms, according to the News and Observer’s analysis.
The University of North Carolina at Pembroke is also turning up the heat on voting and getting students involved.
UNC Pembroke, one of 83 campuses in 23 states, has been titled a Voter-Friendly Campus as a result of the efforts of the office of Community and Civic Engagement.
The UNCP Votes Coalition is led by students Harrison Pegram and Thomas Crowe-Allbritton and overseen by staff fellows Dalton Hoffer and Bethany Wendler.
The National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE) provides UNC Pembroke with student voting and registration statistics. These statistics helps UNCP Votes with their efforts and provides insight.
In the 2014 midterm elections, 64.2 percent of students were registered to vote and of those 31 percent voted.
For presidential elections, in 2012, 72.6 percent of students were registered while 65.6 percent of registered students voted. Comparatively, in the 2016 elections, 69.6 percent of students were registered and 67.1 percent of those voted.
While these numbers could be higher, and that is what UNCP Votes is striving for, the institutional voting rate in 2012 was 47.6 percent and 2014 held a lower 46.7 percent. UNC Pembroke surpassed both of those years.
It is also found that more part-time students voted in both 2012 and 2014 presidential elections than full-time and more upperclassman vote than underclassmen. The statistics for the 2018 midterm elections are not yet available.
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