About party registration

As the absentee vote totals (which includes early voting), roll in and various number crunchings take place, keep in mind that in NC, party registrations, though informative, are not a straight up indication of how people vote. The initial skim anywhere is to apply a discount to the party breakdown of the totals based on candidate support within the party. In North Carolina, it all gets pretty complicated after that. The first factor to consider is history, specifically one-party rule, which saw only temporary interruptions through the late 1960s as Nixon’s southern strategy took hold. Throughout the state, elections for county commissioner, state legislature and congress were decided during the Democratic primary. If you wanted to have a say, you registered as a Democrat.…