How to Work with Our Data

Answers to Frequently Asked Data Questions

Refer to this page, organized alphabetically by key term below, for guidance on how to work with our data. For data access, visit the Results & Data section on this website or visit our public FTP site for direct access to all public data files.

For answers to common inquiries on other subjects related to North Carolina elections, visit County Board Kit.

Page Content:

Absentee By-Mail Lists

For a list of voters in a county who requested an absentee by-mail ballot, follow these instructions:

  1. Download “Absentee by County (ZIP)” file from the Absentee and Provisional Data page.
  2. Filter the ‘abs_req_type’ column for ‘MAIL’ (or for ‘CIVILIAN,’ ‘MILITARY,’ and ‘OVERSEAS’ depending on the year).
  3. Note that some voters will have more than one row if multiple requests and/or if, e.g., ballot spoiled and resent.

For a list of voters in a county who cast an accepted absentee by-mail ballot:

  1. Download “Absentee by County (ZIP)” file from the Absentee and Provisional Data page.
  2. Filter ‘abs_req_type’ column for ‘MAIL’.
  3. Filter the ‘ballot_rtn_status' column for ‘ACCEPTED’ (and ‘ACCEPTED - CURED’ for 2020 general election).

Absentee By-Mail Statistics

To view counts of voters in a county who cast accepted absentee by-mail ballots, by party, race, and gender, follow these instructions:

  1. Download “Absentee Counts by County (ZIP)” file from the Absentee and Provisional Data page.
  2. Filter ‘ballot_req_type’ column for ‘CIVILIAN,’ ‘MILITARY,’ and ‘OVERSEAS’.
  3. View counts via the ‘ballot_count’ column.

To view counts of absentee-by-mail ballot requests received by county boards of election, by party, race, ethnicity, and gender, follow these instructions:

  1. Download the “Absentee Request Demographic Stats (CSV)” from the Absentee and Provisional Data page.
  2. Filter the county column for the desired county
  3. View counts via the ‘group_count’ column. (Please note these are ballot request counts, not counts of voters who submitted requests. A voter may have submitted more than one request, for a variety of reasons).

For 2022 General Election absentee stats:

For 2020 General Election absentee stats:

For 2018 General Election absentee stats:

Early Voting Lists

For a list of voters in a county who voted early via early voting:

  1. Download “Absentee by County (ZIP)” file from the Absentee and Provisional Data page.
  2. Filter the ‘abs_req_type’ column for ‘EARLY VOTING’.
  3. Filter the ‘ballot_rtn_status’ column for ‘ACCEPTED’.

Early Voting Statistics

To calculate overall early voting stats for a county:

  1. Download “Absentee Counts by County (ZIP)” from the Absentee and Provisional Data page.
  2. Filter ‘ballot_req_type’ column for ‘EARLY VOTING’.
  3. View counts via the ‘ballot_count’ column.

To calculate daily early voting stats for a county:

  1. Download "Absentee by County (ZIP)" from the Absentee and Provisional Data page.
  2. Filter the ‘abs_req_type’ column for ‘EARLY VOTING’.
  3. Filter the ‘ballot_rtn_status’ column for ‘ACCEPTED’.
  4. Aggregate by precinct using the ‘precinct_desc’ column.
  5. Aggregate by date voted using the ‘ballot_rtn_dt’ column.
  6. Aggregate by voter party or demographics using the ‘voter_party_code,’ ‘race,’ ‘ethnicity,’ or ‘gender’ columns.

For municipal election early voting stats:

For 2022 General Election early voting stats:

Election Results

To view results without having to download any files:

To download files with results by precinct:

Filtering Data in Excel

Excel for Windows/PC or Mac:

NVRA Statistics

To view tables and graphs displaying voter registration transaction statistics by year, month, and type:

To access the monthly NVRA reports (CSV files):

Early Voting Lists

See Early Voting Lists above.

Early Voting Statistics

See Early Voting Statistics above.

Opening .txt Files in Excel

Excel for Windows/PC:

  • Visit Import or export text (.txt or .csv) files | Microsoft Support and view instructions under ‘Import a file by connecting to it (Power Query)’.
  • To change the delimiter  (i.e., if the file loads as a single column and needs to be separated), view instructions under ‘Change the delimiter that is used when importing a file’.

Excel for Mac:

Opening .zip Files

Unzipping .zip files using Windows:

Unzipping .zip files on a Mac:

Note: After you've unzipped the .zip file, be sure to save its contents on your computer so that you can open it later in, e.g., Excel.

Party Changes

For a list of voters who have changed party affiliation during a specific year, or during a specific time frame:

  1. See Party Change files.
  2. Download ‘####_party_change_list.csv’ for the desired year.
  3. (If applicable) Filter 'change_dt' column for specified time frame.
  4. Note that the file contains VRNs, but not voter names or info; the file can be joined with the current Voter Registration files via VRN (voter_reg_num).

For the number of voters who have changed party affiliation during a specific month:

  1. See Party Change files.
  2. Download ‘####_party_change_stats.csv’ for the desired month.

Provisional Voter Lists

To view a list of voters who cast a provisional ballot in an election:

  1. Download Provisional File from Absentee and Provisional Data page.
  2. For only voters whose provisional ballots were counted or partially counted, filter the ‘pv_status’ column by ‘APPROVED’ and ‘PARTIAL’.

Registered Voter Lists

To view a list of registered voters statewide or by county:

  • See Current Voter Registration Data files (for current data), download the statewide or county file, and filter the ‘voter_status’ column for ‘ACTIVE’, ‘INACTIVE’, and ‘TEMPORARY’.
  • See Voter Registration Snapshot files (for election-specific data), download the appropriate file, and filter the ‘voter_status’ column for ‘ACTIVE’, ‘INACTIVE’, and ‘TEMPORARY’.

To view a list of registered voters by precinct, congressional district, legislative district, or other districts:

  • See Current Voter Registration Data files (for current data), download the statewide or county file, filter by precinct or district, and filter the ‘voter_status’ column for ‘ACTIVE’, ‘INACTIVE’, and ‘TEMPORARY’.
  • See Voter Registration Snapshot files (for election-specific data), download the appropriate file, filter by precinct or district, and filter the ‘voter_status’ column for ‘ACTIVE‘, ‘INACTIVE’, and ‘TEMPORARY’.

For same-day registration data, see Same-Day Registration below.

Registered Voter Statistics

For the number of registered voters statewide and per county, or the number of the registered voters by party, race, ethnicity, or gender:

For the number of registered voters per precinct and/or multiple demographics:

  • See Current Voter Registration Data files (for current data), download county file and filter the ‘voter_status’ column for ‘ACTIVE’, ‘INACTIVE’, and ‘TEMPORARY’; then aggregate the total_voters by ‘precinct_desc’ or demographic column(s).
  • See Historical Registered Voter Stats files (for election-specific data), download the appropriate file, and aggregate by ‘precinct_desc’ or demographic. columns

Results

See Election Results above.

Same-Day Registration

For a list of voters who registered via same-day registration (SDR):

  1. Download the Absentee file.
  2. Filter the ‘sdr’ column for ‘Y’ or ‘YES’.
  3. Note that the ‘sdr’ column is not present in absentee files prior to the 2016 general.

Voter History Lists

To generate a statewide, county-level, or precinct-level voter history list, utilizing current registration data:

  1. Download the current Voter History Data file (statewide or county) from the Voter History Data page.
  2. Download the current Voter Registration Data (statewide or county) from the Voter Registration Data page.
  3. Join the files via ‘ncid’ column, or by ‘county’ + ‘voter_reg_num’ columns.
  4. The resulting file is sortable/filterable by precinct, party, demographics, district, etc.

Note: The ‘county_desc’ column shows the county in which a voter is currently registered, while the ‘voted_county_desc’ column shows the county in which a voter voted during a given election.

Voter History Statistics

To find stats about voters who participated in a specific election, use the Historical Voter History Stats files, from the Voter History Data page, to view:

  • Statewide voter history stats
  • Voter history stats by county or precinct (i.e., number of voters who voted in an election per county or precinct) if you download and aggregate by county or precinct
  • Voter history stats by demographic (i.e., number of voters who voted in an election by race, ethnicity, gender and age group) if you download and aggregate by demographic(s)
  • Voter history stats by voting method (i.e., number of voters who voted in an election, per voting method: absentee by-mail, early voting, in-person on Election Day, or provisional) if you download and aggregate by voting method

Voter Registration

See Registered Voter Lists section and/or Registered Voter Statistics section above.

Voter Turnout

For general election voter turnout (1976–present) and primary election voter turnout (1988–present):

For more detailed turnout stats from recent elections, including early voting stats:

To generate voter turnout stats for a specific election (by county, precinct, voting method, party, and voter demographics):

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