Chris Kromm says provisional ballots won't help John McCain.

In a post on Facing South, the head of the Institute for Southern Studies says that the number of provisional ballots will likely be lower than in past elections because of one-stop voting and notes that they have "historically favored" the Democratic candidate.

Historically, North Carolina has had a high number of provisionals: as the N.C. Coalition for Verified Voting notes in their helpful run-down on the issue, N.C. had 77,469 provisional ballots in 2004 and 92,621 in the 2006 mid-terms. The 2004 number put N.C. in the top five nationally for provisional votes in 2004.

The number of provisional ballots is expected to be lower in 2008 because of same-day voter registration, a reform passed in 2007. The top reason people vote provisionally, and end up having their ballots rejected, is because they are not registered. In N.C., where 42% of the electorate voted during the early voting period, voters can register and vote at the same time during early voting.

He says the provisional ballots won't help McCain make up an 11,690-vote deficit to Barack Obama in North Carolina when the final votes are certified.

Young voters are politically awake this year.

Energized by the heated presidential primary, voters from age 18 to their early 20s are heading to the polls in greater numbers than before.

In many other states with primaries this year, young voters turned out at rates three times the usual.

National and state campaigns are reaching out to this new voting bloc in an attempt to woo them. U.S. Senate candidate Kay Hagan's son, Tilden, is hitting college campuses, while Chelsea Clinton has visited North Carolina several times.

Campaigns are posting ads on YouTube and gathering supporters on Facebook. (N&O)

Some voting equipment in North Carolina doesn't work well.

The state required paper ballots after a loss of 4,400 votes in Carteret County in 2004. In some cases, counties use hand-marked ballots, but in others they use touch-screen machines with a paper roll similar to a cash-register tape.

But the paper rolls have a tendency to get jammed.

In Guilford County, nine percent of the machines had a paper jam in 2006. Mecklenburg County officials estimated they had 50 or 60 jams.

"It's definitely not as reliable as your cash register tape or your ATM machine," said Joyce McCloy, founder of the N.C. Coalition for Verified Voting. (Char-O)