Old North News

Republican ballot requests by Independents for the North Carolina primaries are rising to levels that far outpace those seen in the 2020 and 2018 primaries, according to a press release Tuesday from the Voter Reference Foundation (VRF). 

This comes alongside VRF Executive Director Gina Swoboda’s goal of "making elections more transparent,” by allowing the public to see voter rolls and track absentee ballots. North Carolina was one of the first three states to be added to the VRF portal.

“Our mission is to make voter information more accessible to the public. It is the public that bears the cost to collect and maintain this data across the country," Swoboda said in a recent release. "We are making elections more transparent, piece-by-piece." 

VRF claims this news represents a major shift in the party ballots as a percentage of total ballots between 2020 and 2022. According to the findings, 63.25% of independent voters pulled a GOP ballot in the 2022 primary, whereas only 32.64% did so in 2020 and 51.28% in 2018.

Among findings, data shows the number of Democrat ballots that have been requested in 2022 is lower than in 2018, while the percentage of total Republican ballot requests is higher than in 2018, marking a +8 increase in Republican ballots and a -8 decrease for Democrat ballots). 

This comes as VRF says they were able to capture data using their Absentee Ballot Tracker tool. The organization says they plan to look at Georgia's turnout next to see if this surge in Independents pulling GOP ballots continues.