Early voting is almost over in Charlotte. Why are so few casting ballots in the primary?

The number of people voting early in Charlotte’s municipal primary has ticked up since more polling places opened, but the overall number of voters who’ve turned out so far remains low.

Through Thursday, 4,692 voters had cast ballots at the city’s 10 early voting sites, according to data from the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections. An additional 96 people have voted by mail.

More than 4,000 of those in-person early votes have come since Tuesday, when nine additional polling places opened across the city alongside the Hal Marshall Annex site that’d been up since Aug. 24.

“The moment you open up an early voting site, everyone gets involved,” Michael Dickerson, director of the county Board of Elections, said of the upswing.

Voters must be registered as a Democrat or unaffiliated to vote in the 2023 primaries because there aren’t enough Republicans running this year for a GOP primary for mayor or City Council seats. Democratic primaries for Charlotte mayor and City Council at-large seats are on the ballot, as are Democratic primaries in four of Charlotte’s seven City Council districts.

There are more than 320,700 registered Democrats in Mecklenburg County and almost 291,000 unaffiliated voters, according to the State Board of Elections.

Multiple factors can depress turnout in a primary, Dickerson said, including a lack of Republican candidates to bring out GOP voters.

“Typically, you don’t have a primary like this,” he said.

Early voting ends at 3 p.m. Saturday, and primary election day is Tuesday.

Which City Council districts have the most early voters?

The early voting site in City Council District 4, a former Kohl’s in University City, has led the way so far among all polling places. Through Thursday, 1,129 Charlotteans had voted there.

Incumbent District 4 Councilwoman Renee Perkins Johnson faces two challengers in her Democratic primary, Wil Russell and Olivia Scott. That race has grown contentious, with the candidates trading barbs over endorsements.

The second most popular early voting site is also the one that’s been open the longest, the Hal Marshall Annex. More than 840 people had voted there through Thursday.

The least popular early voting site, where just 96 ballots have been cast, is the Elon Park Recreation Center. That’s located in City Council District 7 in south Charlotte, where Republican incumbent Ed Driggs has no primary challenger and will be unopposed in November’s general election.

Charlotte residents can vote at any of the 10 early voting sites during early voting, but they must vote at their designated precinct on election day.

How does 2023 turnout compare to past primaries?

“It’s hard to tell whether turnout has been good or not” yet, Mecklenburg Democrats Chairman Drew Kromer said, because results aren’t in yet from the last two days of early voting and primary election day.

“Higher turnout levels can obviously sway an election,” he said. “We’ve got several competitive races.”

Turnout levels have varied in recent municipal primaries in Charlotte.

In the 2022 primary cycle — which included county-level races as well as city positions — 14.07% of Mecklenburg County voters participated, according to the State Board of Elections.

That figure was higher in the 2019 primary — 21.65% — but lower in 2017, when just 7.97% of Mecklenburg County voters voted in the Charlotte primary.

In 2023, Dickerson said, the county Board of Elections is hoping for about 10% turnout in the primary. The fewer than 5,000 voters who had cast early ballots through Thursday make up less than 1% of the registered Democratic and unaffiliated voters in Mecklenburg County.

Will turnout increase in general election?

Turnout will likely be higher in the November general election than the September primary, according to Dickerson, with school board races, a major bond measure for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and municipal races in other Mecklenburg County towns on the ballot to drive voters to the polls.

“We are not pushing people as hard in this race as we will in November,” Kromer acknowledged of the Mecklenburg Democrats’ efforts.

Still, he said, he’s hopeful that more folks will still come out to vote in the primary.

“It’s always crazy to me just the incredibly low number of people who turn out in these municipal primaries,” he said. “In Charlotte, you end up with possibly just a couple of thousand people who end up deciding who all of our top Charlotte elected officials are.”