First ballots for 2024 presidential election start going out TODAY in key battleground state

Some American voters can cast their ballots for the 2024 election at any moment, as the very first ballots were already sent out on Friday.

The pivotal state of North Carolina began mailing out its first ballots on September 6, 60 days before Election Day.

It is the first state in the country to begin mailing out ballots as the campaign is in full swing and entering its final stages.

Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris is hoping to secure the key swing state and its 16 electoral votes, while the Tar Heel State also hosts one of the most contested gubernatorial races of 2024.

Trump won the state in 2016 and 2020. But the latest polls show a close race, with the former president leading the vice president by just over half a point, according to the Real Clear Politics average.

Harris’ campaign sees North Carolina as one of the states where Democrats can seize power in November, and they have invested a lot of time and money in it.

The first ballots are going out before Harris and Trump face each other for the first time on the debate stage. The highly anticipated primetime showdown is scheduled for September 10 in Philadelphia. The first ballots will go out in Pennsylvania on September 16.

However, Western Carolina University professor Chris Cooper does not believe North Carolina’s early voting by mail date will have a major electoral impact on either candidate.

“Let’s say we sent it out 45 days before the election instead of 60, I don’t know that we’d see a much different outcome,” Cooper said. “The same people would probably still vote.”

However, he offered two pieces of evidence why it could potentially benefit Harris on the margins: Mail-in voting has been used more by Democrats in recent years, and Harris has remained enthusiastic since President Biden’s move to the polls.

‘“It’s hard to stay enthusiastic for months,” he noted.

The first ballots in North Carolina are being mailed before Kamala Harris and Donald Trump face off on the debate stage on September 10

North Carolina will begin sending mail-in ballots to all voters who request them, including military personnel and voters overseas, 60 days in advance.

Voters can apply for a “postal vote” by completing the official form online, by sending a paper form by mail, or by delivering it in person.

Voters in swing states don’t need an excuse to vote by mail. While the first ballots go out Friday, voters have until seven days before the Nov. 5 election to request a mail-in ballot.

More than a million people voted by mail in North Carolina’s 2020 election, but that was at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Another 3.6 million people voted early in person.

In 2022, fewer than 190,000 people voted by mail in the midterm elections, while more than two million people chose to vote early in person.

Election workers fill out mail-in ballots in North Carolina in September 2020. The number of people voting by mail in the last presidential election surged due to the pandemic, but fell again in 2022

“It’s usually a relatively small portion of the total number of votes cast, so two to three percentage points,” Cooper said of mail-in voting in the state. “In 2020, it skyrocketed to about one in five votes cast, and in 2022 it went down again.’

Cooper called it “important in a state like North Carolina,” but expects it will be dwarfed by in-person, early or Election Day voting.

In North Carolina, early in-person voting begins on October 17.

There are some changes to voting this year, whether in person or by mail, in the state. Voters who mail in their ballots must include a photocopy of an acceptable form of identification or fill out a photo ID exemption form to submit with their mailed ballot.

Harris visited North Carolina in August to deliver her first economic policy address in Raleigh, shortly after Trump was also in the state to deliver speeches focused on the economy.

The stops were among several both nominees made there this year. Harris’ running mate Tim Walz recently headed to North Carolina after campaigning in Georgia last week.

Democrats have stepped up their efforts to flip the state, with the latest polls showing Trump leading by less than a point. He won the state by less than 75,000 votes in the last presidential election.

The last Democrat to win North Carolina in the presidential election was former President Obama in 2008. Democrats see it as one of the few battlegrounds they can add to their column since 2020.

The state is known for its independent streak. While Trump won the state in 2016 and 2020, North Carolina also elected Democratic Governor Roy Cooper.

North Carolina voters will also vote for Governor Robinson and Stein

This year’s gubernatorial race between Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein was a brutal one. The latest Real Clear Politics average shows Stein ahead by nearly nine points.

Traditionally, Republicans preferred to vote by mail, in part because of the large military presence. That changed when Trump began to question the idea of ​​mailing in ballots in 2020. More Republicans listened to him, while Democrats chose to do the opposite.

Some Republicans are doing everything they can to ensure that their voters take advantage of every opportunity to vote, even if that means voting by mail.