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"Thank you for a wonderful workshop on Saturday. You did a really great job and we are grateful. Thanks also for inviting Juvencio to come. I am sure he can help us with the Latino vote and to help them become part of the entire community... I love Democracy NC; you guys are a great group."
Pat Seibert, Beaufort County
Welcome...
We created this website for the 2008 Election:
Thank you for visiting Election Connection. This website served as Democracy North Carolina's resource center during the 2008 elections, helping people learn about registering, getting out the vote, voter rights and election law. The dates in each section relate to that election, but the overall guidance may be of help to you. To use this site, visit the links in the top navigational bar. If you had problems when you voted or if you have questions about the law, please call toll-free:
Measures of Change... 40 Years and 304,000 Votes Later
Congratulations to all of you who helped hundreds of thousands of new voters take part in the electoral process. North Carolina now has an electorate that more closely reflects our state’s diverse demographics and moves us closer to a more representative government.
The historic 2008 election reflects the changing face of North Carolina. If you look back 40 years to the pivotal election of 1968, you can see how much the role of women and black North Carolinians has changed in the voting process. In 1968, there were 304,400 African Americans registered to vote in North Carolina, or 55% of the voting-age black population. That same year, Henry E. Frye became the first African American elected to the NC General Assembly after the official end of segregation. Three women won election to the General Assembly, and Margaret Taylor Harper entered the race for Lieutenant Governor, becoming the first woman to ever run for statewide office in NC. Meanwhile, a look at the Presidential election in 1968 provides a snapshot of North Carolina's political affiliations: George Wallace received 31% of our state's vote, compared to 29% for Hubert Humphrey and 40% for Richard Nixon.
Flash forward 40 years to 2008: A record 44 women and 29 blacks won election to the NC General Assembly, and by a small plurality, North Carolina favored Barack Obama, thanks to a large boost from new voters. In fact, there were 304,700 new registrations from African Americans between January 1 and November 1, 2008 – about the same number of all blacks registered in the state in 1968. The increase put the number of registered African Americans at 1,343,400 – more than 85% of the entire voting-age black population and 22% of all registered voters in our state. The number of women registering also increased during 2008 and, as of November 1, 54% of all registered voters in North Carolina are women.
But African Americans and women weren’t the only citizens of NC to step forward in large numbers. Altogether, North Carolina added 967,800 new registrations in 2008. (There were 313,000 registrations removed from the rolls for various reasons, for a net increase of 654,800.) Nearly 200,000 used North Carolina’s new Same-Day Registration law to register and vote during the Early Voting period; about half of them were new voters and the others used SDR to update an old registration. The combination of engaging candidates, Early Voting at an expanded number of sites, and Same-Day Registration helped North Carolina achieve a 70% turnout of its registered voters. We became the top state in the nation for increasing voter participation over 2004. This is all good news and bodes well for an involved electorate in the years to come.
