GREENSBORO, N.C. — Almost all of the US has been called for either Biden or Trump, but not NC. According to the North Carolina State Board of Elections, 75,000 votes separate them.
ABSENTEE BALLOTS
As of Monday, November 9 there were 94,900 voters who requested an absentee by-mail ballot had not returned a mail-in ballot or voted during early voting. So, there are enough ballots out there to make a difference in which candidate takes our state and the results are trickling in.
“When an absentee ballot comes in we look at two things: does it have a postmark or not and if it has a postmark on or before election day we will hold that ballot and recommend to the board of elections to count it and if it does not have a postmark or no indication it was mailed on or before election day then we will pull that out to recommend it will not be counted,” said Charlie Collicutt, Guilford County Board of Elections Director.
Once the absentees are separated, the county board of election has to meet to accept the ballots, then open them up and run the ballots through the tabulator. Those meetings don’t all happen at one time for every county.
Three counties met to accept ballots on November 6, ten counties Monday, November 9, and 16 counties on November 10. But many counties including Guilford County and Forsyth don’t have a meeting with the counting until Thursday, November 12.
Every county must submit a final approval of all absentee and all other ballots on November 13, which is called The Canvass. Then the state has two weeks to look over all of the county's numbers and finally, the North Carolina state numbers are confirmed on November 24.
PROVISIONAL BALLOTS
There are also 40,766 provisional ballots statewide to figure out.
“Those are ballots that were cast on early voting or Election Day and we had an issue with the voter’s registration, address or some other issue. Staff now is going through and looking up information to make a determination to whether we can make the ballot count or not count,” said Collicutt.
AUDITS
After every election, the state performs audits of the election process during this week.
For example, the Board of Elections randomly picks out precincts from each county and a race. A bipartisan group hand counts the ballots against the machine tabulator.
It goes on. Each county conducts audits of its own processes and ballots.
“We're doing all sorts of other internal audits to make sure that numbers and signatures match what the voters' sign match up with the votes on the voting equipment, those kinds of audits we do internally,” said Collicutt.