With 78 signatures, this Charlotte group changed which voter data NC will release
This year when North Carolina political organizations gather early voting numbers, they’ll have new data to drive further turnout — ballots cast by Latino and Hispanic voters.
The data will be released because of an effort by the Latino Civic Engagement Group of Mecklenburg County, which successfully petitioned the North Carolina Board of Elections to include ethnicity data — if voters identify as Hispanic or non-Hispanic — in daily voter turnout estimates.
Turnout data divided by race — Black, white or other — is currently available on the North Carolina State Board of Elections site, but the board will begin providing ethnicity data to show how many of the state’s 268,972 Hispanic registered voters are showing up to the polls during the early voting period.
“It extended an olive branch to our request to provide the data we asked for,” said Wendy Mateo-Pascual, member of the civic engagement group.
But the effort doesn’t stop there, she said.
The group plans to meet with the state board in March to discuss promoting voter turnout in Latino communities and urging counties across the state to include ethnicity data in individual reports.
Mecklenburg County currently provides early voting turnout broken down by precinct, and ethnicity data for each precinct is available on the county election board’s website. Kristin Mavromathis, spokesperson for the Mecklenburg elections board, said it provides Hispanic voter data as soon as it becomes available to them.
78 signatures changed how the state reports data
On Jan. 25, the LCEC submitted a petition to the State Board of Elections with its request: adopt regulations and technology to do electoral justice to Hispanic North Carolinians. The request was co-signed by 78 individuals and organizations.
“The status quo puts Latinos at a tremendous disadvantage in increasing our voting during early elections,” Mateo-Pascual said. “It’s very frustrating after the general election when people ask us about Latino voter turnout and we don’t have any answers.”
The Hispanic population is continuing to grow in North Carolina, the petition pointed out, jumping 40% in the past decade. More than 1 million people who identify as Hispanic live in the state, according to 2020 U.S. Census data.
NCSBE Public Information Director Patrick Gannon responded to the group’s request on Feb. 2, agreeing to add turnout data by ethnicity and all race categories to daily absentee request reports and daily absentee statistics reports.
“The State Board will encourage the county boards of elections to include ethnicity data in such reports going forward,” Gannon said in an email. “We will consider any requests from your organization and others about improving public access to elections data and information.”
The board responded a few days later, setting a meeting for March 7 to continue conversations about encouraging Latino voter turnout.
“We certainly recognize that ensuring equitable access to voter turnout data may involve multiple levels of governmental institutions and systems,” the letter signed by Mateo-Pascual and other LCEC members said. “Nevertheless, it is important that the nearly 350,000 Hispanic citizens eligible to vote become involved in the electoral process to ensure their voice contributes to the political landscape of North Carolina.”
North Carolina voter data available online
In Gannon’s response to the LCEC, he shared links voter ethnicity data currently available on the state site at vt.ncsbe.org.
▪ Current voter registration data statewide and by county is updated weekly on Saturday mornings.
▪ Voter turnout by ethnicity (2022 general election), but it’s sometimes not available until months after the election. All 100 counties must assign voter history to each voter before the full dataset becomes public, Gannon told the LCEC.
▪ Absentee data files statewide and by county are updated daily throughout the absentee voting period before each election.
▪ Provisional data files are updated daily around elections.
This story was originally published February 15, 2023 at 1:13 PM.
