Early voting shatters record with more than 4 million ballots cast

Early voting records in North Carolina continue to be broken. During a Friday morning press call, Karen Brinson Bell, executive director for the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE), said that voters have cruised past the record set at this time in 2020. As of 2 pm Friday, more than 3,798,000 voters cast their ballots at one of the 420 early voting sites, compared to a total early voter turnout of 3,629,000 in 2020.

Through Thursday, 4,009,149 ballots were cast statewide, or 51.2% of the state’s 7.8 million registered voters. Also, voter turnout in the 25 counties in the Helene disaster area in western North Carolina continues to outpace voter turnout statewide.

She said it may be too late to send back a mail-in ballot by regular mail to reach a voter’s county board of elections by 7:30 pm on Election Day Tuesday. Voters can select to send it by mail via overnight or Express mail or using a private delivery service like FedEx or UPS, or they can hand deliver it to any early voting site by 3 pm Saturday, the end of early voting, or they can drop it off at their county board of elections before the deadline on Election Day.

Those in the 25 counties affected by Helene can drop off their ballot at any early voting site in the state, any county board of elections office, or at the NCSBE office in Raleigh before the 7:30 pm deadline on Election Day.

If anyone received an absentee ballot and hasn’t returned it, they can discard it and vote during early voting or on Election Day.

Brinson Bell said they anticipate more than a million voters will vote at more than 2,600 polling places across the state from 6:30 am to 7:30 pm on Election Day. In western North Carolina, almost all Election Day voting sites that were planned before Hurricane Helene will still be operational. There will also be secure tents for the handful of precincts with no physical structure available to host voting due to storm damage. The alternate voting sites are now set up at seven locations, with four in Yancey County and one each in Buncombe, Burke, and Haywood counties.

“Officials in this state have done and will continue to do everything in our power to conduct a fair, secure, and accessible election under the laws of North Carolina,” she said. “Every single piece of voting equipment has been tested before this election. All early voting sites and Election Day polling places are staffed with bipartisan trained officials who swear an oath to uphold the law. Election observers appointed by the political parties also are present at voting sites adding extra eyes to make sure processes and laws are followed.”

Brinson Bell said voters across the state are voting with paper ballots either marked by hand or with a ballot marking device. Each voter inserts their ballot into a tabulator for counting. After the election, all county boards of elections will conduct post-election audits to verify the tabulator counts. Should any recounts be necessary, especially for close contests, those recounts will be conducted.

Absentee ballots will be tabulated during a meeting of the bipartisan county boards on Tuesday afternoon and can be uploaded when the polls close at 7:30 pm.

She said that due to a change in state law, county boards cannot close tabulators and upload the results until after the polls close.

Voters in line at 7:30 will still be permitted to vote. After the polling place closes, everything will be secured and transported to the county board of elections.

Brinson Bell expects the bulk of the results to come into all 100 county boards between 9:30 PM and 11:00 PM on election night, and the vast majority of the unofficial results will be in their system and available to the public by 11 PM.

She added that, by law, some ballots, like absentee ballots that arrive on Election Day, will not be counted on election night and will be counted during the 10-day canvas period.

Additionally, absentee ballots from the military and US citizens living abroad can also arrive during the canvas, and provisional ballots, which normally occur when someone goes to a precinct they’re not registered to vote in, will be counted at provisional meetings.

Since this is also the first General Election in which a photo ID is required, anyone who doesn’t have an acceptable form of photo ID may vote provisionally. Brinson Bell expects the number of provisional ballots to be higher as a result. The provisional ballot tally should be completed by Wednesday afternoon. Voters have nine days after Election Day to bring their ID to their county board of election for verification.

She also noted that voters in the 25 counties affected by Helene who have turned in their absentee ballots and have been counted at their county board’s absentee ballot meetings will be included in the count on election night. Others that are time-stamped by 7:30 that night but don’t make it to their county board of elections may be counted later.

Brinson Bell also commented that there have been very few instances of aggressive activity in campaigning areas outside polling places and no reports of foreign cyber-attacks at the state or local level.

But they are prepared for any post-election threats at election board offices across the state.

“We have tried to implement safeguards and safe practices that can help us be ready if we were to come under such attacks,” she said. “It varies across the offices as to what they need, but in some cases, panic buttons, some offices have installed bulletproof glass, some have changed the makeup of their entryways to still be transparent in their processes but limit access into secure areas things of that nature. But those are the precautions that we have taken. We also have for the safety of the voters, but also the safety of election officials, we have worked closely with local, state, and federal law enforcement officers so that if necessary they can be called in.”

A reporter asked if anyone else would be prosecuted for taking a ballot selfie since a court ruled that Libertarian voter Susan Hogarth could.

NCSBE General Counsel Paul Cox said that its still against the law, regardless of the ruling.

“Every voting site across the state has been instructed that photography at a voting site is strictly prohibited unless under very specific circumstances, and broadcasting the image of a voted ballot is against the law in North Carolina,” he said.

Brinson Bell added that going into a voting booth and taking a selfie sets a person up for possible harassment, intimidation, or even ramifications in their employment and urges people not to do it.

“You can proudly say you voted by taking a selfie outside of the polling place with your ‘I Voted’ sticker or with the backdrop that’s been provided in a lot of these counties, and yes, communicate out to your friends and your family that how proud you are that you’ve participated in the process and encourage others to do the same,” she said. “But having a picture of your ballot is not necessary to encourage people to vote. If you want to state how you voted, that’s your prerogative, but taking a picture of your ballot is against the law and it is problematic, and we don’t want a problematic situation for our voters. So think beyond that immediate instant gratification of taking that picture and think about the long-term ramifications of what that could present for you or for others.”