Here’s the latest on the number of potential votes left to count in NC
Ten days out from the 2020 election, county officials will spend Friday finalizing their counts of an estimated 25,000 potential votes left to count across North Carolina.
That’s according to an analysis of state election data by The News & Observer as of about 6 a.m. Friday. The remaining ballots were never likely to change unofficial results for the presidential or Senate contests, but they’ve had an impact on downballot races with much smaller margins.
The 25,000 ballots, a figure that represents the absolute maximum number of votes left to count, now break down into two main categories: mail-in ballots received since Election Day and provisional ballots. A third category — outstanding mail-in ballots — no longer applies, since the deadline for county elections boards to receive those ballots was Thursday at 5 p.m.
All of these ballots were cast on or before Election Day.
Election results in North Carolina aren’t official until they’re certified by the State Board of Elections on Nov. 24.
This is a developing story and will be updated throughout the day Nov. 13.
Outstanding mail-in ballots
State data as of Friday morning puts the number of outstanding mail-in ballots at about 91,000. As expected, it’s ticked down over the last few days as ballots arrive.
But because the Nov. 12 deadline for receiving those ballots has now passed, they’re no longer included The News & Observer’s total.
If that number of outstanding ballots seems large, remember that this figure is a measure of the number of mail-in ballots requested by voters, but not yet returned. Election officials expected voters wouldn’t actually cast all of those ballots. And others wouldn’t have counted because they weren’t postmarked by Election Day or weren’t properly filled out.
This number also does not yet account for voters with outstanding mail-in ballots who changed their minds and voted in person on Election Day.
Accepted, but untallied, mail-in ballots
Since Election Day, about 38,000 mail-in ballots have been accepted after arriving at county boards of elections, according to state data as of Friday morning.
Some of those ballots have not yet been included in the state’s unofficial results. For that to happen, they first have to be approved by county boards in open meetings held through Friday.
Most of the 100 county boards in North Carolina waited until Nov. 12 to meet and tally these ballots. But some, like Mecklenburg County, began meeting Nov. 6 to formally approve and include them in the state’s unofficial results. Those results are updated essentially in real time, so it’s difficult to calculate an exact number of ballots approved after Election Day across all counties because they’re lumped in with the larger total.
But on Saturday, the State Board of Elections began publishing the number of ballots approved at county meetings, as reported by the local election boards. For boards that haven’t reported their final tally, the page also includes estimates.
As of Friday morning, the state board put that total — both approved and estimated — at about 33,000.
With those ballots now counted and included in the unofficial results, that would leave about 5,000 ballots received, accepted and waiting for county boards to review by the end of Friday.
This number is likely to change throughout the day.
Back-of-the-napkin calculations aside, this figure has its own caveats to consider.
It’s possible that not all of these ballots will ultimately be included in the results after boards of elections meet to approve them. If there’s some error that wasn’t detectable before opening the envelope (there have been cases in past elections, for example, where voters forgot to include the ballot itself), they may be spoiled.
There could also be voters who cast ballots in person on Election Day after they put their absentee ballots in the mail mixed in with this figure. State Board of Elections spokesperson Pat Gannon said in that instance, the case would be forwarded to the board’s investigative staff as a possible double vote, leaving the ballot open to a challenge.
Provisional ballots
The state reported Nov. 5 that voters cast 41,000 provisional ballots, which are votes cast if there are problems at the polls. A person may cast a provisional ballot, for example, if there’s a question about her eligibility to vote.
But many of these votes won’t end up counting at all. As of Wednesday afternoon, state officials reported that about 20,000 provisional ballots had been rejected. Along with a handful of provisional ballots county boards have so far approved and included in the unofficial results, the count of outstanding provisionals now stands at about 20,000 (this figure is a few days old, so the true number is likely already lower).
County election boards must research each of these ballots to answer whatever questions arose, and accept or reject them based on those findings during meetings through the end of the day Friday, so not all of them will count.
By comparison, about 60,000 provisional ballots were cast in 2016. Just over half were rejected.
Given the unprecedented nature of 2020’s election, it’s unclear whether we should expect the same acceptance rate for provisional ballots this year.
This number is likely to change throughout the day as county boards meet to finalize and report out their results.
Putting it all together
Adding those categories of potentially uncounted ballots gives us a total of about 25,000 as of Friday morning. That’s dropped significantly from about 166,000 on Monday as ballots trickled in, deadlines passed and county election officials met to process the votes.
The estimate of potential ballots left to count remains an absolute maximum, since county boards won’t approve them all.
It’s worth noting, though, that at least 97% of the votes cast in 2020 in North Carolina were counted on Election Day. That’s right in line with estimates by the State Board of Elections, which expected to count about 98% of the vote by the end of Tuesday.
With the Nov. 12 deadline passed, we now have a nearly complete picture of how many mail-in ballots — properly postmarked by Election Day — arrived at county boards of election over the last 10 days.
State data on Friday shows more than 23,000 accepted mail-in ballots arrived on Election Day, or about 62% of the post-Nov. 2 total so far. The number of daily arrivals fluctuated throughout the week, dropping to a low of 60 on Wednesday. But on Thursday, it surged again slightly, with about 500 accepted ballots arriving by the deadline.
Even these numbers aren’t final: We could see totals by day increase slightly as county boards continue to enter data or accept any ballots that arrived but remain pending.
This story was originally published November 6, 2020 at 12:19 PM with the headline "Here’s the latest on the number of potential votes left to count in NC."