The magazine of the North Carolina Center for Voter Education • Thursday February 23, 2012

For Second Year, N.C. Teens Most Likely to 'Pre-Register' as Unaffiliated Voters

By Bryan Warner
Published: Jan. 13, 2012

RALEIGH - For the second year in a row, more teens chose to pre-register as unaffiliated voters rather than identify themselves with any of North Carolina’s three officially recognized political parties in 2011, according to data from the N.C. State Board of Elections.

Some 41,000 16- and 17-year-olds took advantage of pre-registration last year, an increase from the 38,000 that pre-registered during the first year the option was available in 2010.

By pre-registering to vote, the teens are automatically added to the rolls of active voters once they turn 18. 

Girls slightly outpaced boys for pre-registration in 2011, 51-49 percent. The top five counties for voter pre-registration were Wake, Mecklenburg, Union, Cabarrus and Forsyth.

Of the teens that pre-registered in 2011, 38 percent opted to do so as unaffiliated voters, while 32 percent pre-registered as Republicans, 29 percent as Democrats and 1 percent as Libertarians.

Those numbers echo what was seen in 2010, but with a 1-percent up tick for the share of Republican affiliation in 2011, which accounted for 31 percent of pre-registered voters the year previous. Democratic pre-registration remained steady at 29 percent of the total.

At the same time that a plurality of teens opted to pre-register without a party label, the share of active voters who are unaffiliated increased by 1 percent in 2011, while the percentage of Republican registration fell by the same amount and the share of Democratic registration was flat.

Among currently registered North Carolina voters 18-years and above, 44 percent are Democratic, 31 percent Republican, .2 percent Libertarian and 25 percent are unaffiliated.