Chief Judge Marianne Hendrix

Nov. 8. There were 21,067 early votes cast through Saturday at Cornelius Town Hall, reflecting the power of early voting in North Carolina. All told, 284,000 early votes were cast in Mecklenburg County through Saturday.

All four precincts in Cornelius had little or no waiting mid-afternoon. The results of early voting and absentee ballots will be reported first tonight. The polls close at 7:30 pm.

The tightest local race is between NC Rep. John Bradford, the Republican incumbent from Cornelius, and Jane Campbell, the unaffilated Davidson resident who has the backing of the Democratic party.

Based on early voting habits, she may take the lead when early votes are tallied, but it’s anybody’s guess when votes cast today are counted later on this evening. Cornelius Today will report on this local election tonight.

At the Community in Christ Lutheran Church polling place, Chief Judge Marianne Hendrix (pictured) said 900 people had voted by about 2 pm, with serious early crowds. There were about 3,100 votes in that precinct alone, which has 6,100 registered voters. With 17 machines, there was no wait at 2 pm.

Statewide there were 299,028 early votes cast, which includes 14,974 absentee ballots. By registration, Republicans were up slightly, Dems down slightly, with a big pool of unaffiliated and independents.