More Chapel Hill election turnout analysis

2013 Chapel Hill Election Turn Out

In spite of the efforts of candidates, college dems, league of women voters and many others turnout for last November’s Chapel Hill election was low. Here is an analysis of the 5313 people who voted in the Chapel Hill Orange County precincts. (Turnout was about 11%) (Total number of Durham County Chapel Hill voters was under 300. Including it would not change very much the analysis.)The data base from the Board of Elections can be sorted by many categories. I looked at age and race. (Latino is not an official category so I estimated it using voter names.) Several of us campaigned a lot in "minority" precincts but it looks like minority turnout was lower than average. Also note that very few college aged residents voted. For example, according to the data base: at Hinton James 5 people voted, 2 from Ehringhause, 12 from Baity Hill and 7 from Paul Hardin Dorm. Fifty percent of the voters are at least 60 years old and less than 10% are under 30 even though thousands of university students live in Chapel Hill.  The May 6 Primary will occur at the end of the semester for UNC. Most students who vote will probably do it via early voting or absentee. The Democratic primary election will determine the winners in Orange County for Commissioners and other county offices. I hope more people will vote this May than last November.

Race/Ethnic Group        # voters              Age  #voters