The residents of North Carolina cast their votes days ago and they are still no closer to knowing which candidates won or lost then when they put their ballots in the mailbox or voted in person at the polling stations.
And for better or for worse, the winners and losers may not be known until Nov. 13.
Here’s a list of the most important aspects concerning the election and where N.C. stands as the citizens of the Tar Heel state anxiously await the results:
NUMBER OF VOTES
As it stands, 5,487,252 people out of a possible 7,359,798 eligible voters have had their votes counted. That 74% mark surpasses quite substantially the normal average of about 60% in years where a president is being elected.
VOTES YET TO COUNT
The N.C. State Board of Elections has said there are nearly 116,200 absentee ballots that were mailed to people requesting them but haven’t yet been counted.
Now, it’s extremely important to note that just because 116,200 ballots were mailed doesn’t mean there are that many votes left to be counted. And the odds of that many votes remaining is exceptionally slim.
The truth is, until the local election boards start sifting through the ballots they have on hand, the state won’t know exactly how many votes are outstanding.
The reason is because ballots could have been mailed to John Smith, Mary Smith and their son Jack Smith, but John never voted, Mary turned hers in at the polling place and has already been counted and Jack mailed his.
In this scenario, John never voted, so that’s one less of the 116,200 the state has to worry about. Mary already turned hers in by hand, which means her vote has already been counted and that’s another one that the state won’t have to count. Jack’s is either en route to the elections board via mail or has already arrived and waiting to be counted. In this scenario, only Jack is part of the 116,200 yet to count.
Each county has to be done counting their absentee ballots by 5 p.m., Nov. 12. Mecklenburg County will start counting at 5 p.m., Nov. 6, while other counties will begin their process the following week. Mecklenburg has 14,900 outstanding ballots, but the odds are the actual amount to count is smaller for the reasons we listed above.
Here’s a breakdown of the type of voter that requested the 116,200 statewide ballots: Independent – 45,300; Democrat – 43,000; Republican – 26,500; Libertarian – 1,200; Green – 200; Constitution – 100.
WHY ARE THEY WAITING TO COUNT BALLOTS?
This gets a little convoluted and deep into the weeds, but basically when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Matt Cavanagh broke ranks last week and ruled with three Democrats and Chief Justice John Roberts allowing N.C. to accept mail-in ballots as late as Nov. 12 as long as it’s postmarked by Nov. 3, it pushed back the counting process.
Normally, all absentee ballots have to be in the hands of election officials within three days of the election, but obviously this isn’t a normal year or election.
So, with the time being extended it allows election officials to wait for as many ballots to come in before they start the counting process. And again, as long as a ballot has a postmark of Nov. 3, or before, and it arrives before 5 p.m., Nov. 12, it will be counted.
WHAT ARE PROVISIONAL VOTES?
The state Board of Elections announced that 40,766 provisional ballots have been cast. They, too, will be counted as votes or ignored over the next week, too.
Provisional ballots occur when there is something odd when a person goes to vote. For instance, if you moved but didn’t update your voter registration to show your new address, you will cast a provisional vote and if it’s deemed your information is correct, then your vote will be counted.
Another example is one that actually happened on Election Day in Mecklenburg County.
A husband and wife went to vote at Calvary Baptist Church and when they went to check in, the official said that the records show the husband had already voted on Oct. 22, at Bank of America Stadium. There are a couple of reasons this could have happened – either someone tried to vote as the husband, or the worker marked the wrong name by mistake.
Either way, the husband did a provisional vote and if it’s determined that the husband is who is says he is, then the first ballot will be discarded, and his will be included.
In 2016, there were roughly 60,000 provisional ballots cast, with 44% of them eventually being counted.
The top three counties with provisional ballots are Wake County (3,437), Mecklenburg (2,483) and Cumberland (1,842).
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