7 County Boards of Elections Counting Additional Votes Today

Seven county boards of elections are meeting today to consider a total of at least 3,200 additional absentee by-mail ballots. Approved ballots will be added to the unofficial results on the State Board of Elections website after the meetings.

The Election Night Results website is here: https://er.ncsbe.gov/. Late last week, 10 county boards of elections added about 4,750 absentee ballots to the unofficial totals.

County boards of elections will continue to meet through Friday, November 13 to consider additional absentee by-mail ballots that arrive at their offices through November 12, provided they were postmarked on or before Election Day.

“We are nearing the finish line,” said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections. “We ask that the public please be patient as county boards of elections, as required, continue to count all eligible ballots that arrive by mail, conduct thorough post-election audits and certify their results.”

Election officials do not “call” contests for any candidate. Historically, the media or candidates have done that when the number of outstanding ballots in a contest is less than the vote difference between candidates or when it is clear that one candidate will ultimately prevail.

According to state law, county boards of elections will complete their processes and canvass the election on November 13. The State Board will meet on November 24 to certify final results.

As of Monday morning, about 94,900 voters who requested an absentee by-mail ballot had not yet returned an accepted ballot or voted in person during the early voting period. The number of these ballots ultimately received by county boards of elections and counted will be less than that because some voters cast their ballot in person on Election Day and others likely did not vote at all.

Additionally, as mentioned in Friday’s news release, more than 30,000 eligible ballots arrived at county boards of elections over the past several days. Those ballots that have not already been approved and counted will be considered by county boards of elections this week.

These numbers are approximations based on the best available data through the state’s election information management system.

Also, the 40,766 provisional ballots voted statewide will be researched to determine whether the voter was eligible, and the approved ballots will be reported on the Election Night Results website on November 12 and 13. In 2016, about 44 percent of provisional ballots cast statewide were counted.

The following seven counties have meetings scheduled today (Monday, November 9). The number of absentee ballots that may be counted is also included. Additional ballots may be considered today if they arrive at the county board office before today’s meeting.

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