50,000 votes and climbing!

Okay, technically it's 49,949 but it's pretty darned close. That's the number of people who have already cast ballots in Durham County as of 10/25/08. (All stats in this post courtesy of the Durham Board of Elections and the BOE PDF.)

Here's the breakdown by site:

Board of Elections office: 10, 702 (21%)
Duke: 4,498 (9%)
East Regional Library: 5,320 (11%)
Forestview Elementary: 3,526 (7%)
NC Central: 7,054 (14%)
North Regional Library: 9,429 (19%)
Southwest Elementary: 9,420 (19%)

There are 175,000 registered voters in Durham and the BOE is expecting about 90-100,000 total early voters, so expect to see some big increases in the numbers above by the end of the day on November 1.

One number leaps out: why is Duke so paltry? Apparently there was a lot of interest in and support from the Duke community to get this location (new this year) but that's a seriously puny turnout. C'mon Blue Devils -- do something right for a change.

Go democracy!

EDIT: After checking the State Board of Elections site it looks like more than 1 million people in the state have already voted early, making Durham's total about 5% of the statewide total. The state site has breakdowns in race and party as well ... more on that later.