NC's Final Election Results Won't Be Known Until Nov. 12

NORTH CAROLINA — Shortly after midnight early Wednesday, North Carolina election officials announced the last batch of unofficial election results, culminating weeks of absentee and early and Election Day voting.

After hours of nail-biting toggling between President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, Trump pulled ahead with a lead of 76,701 votes in the state.

Despite the gap in votes, however, it will be at least eight days before Trump can lay claim to North Carolina's 15 electoral college votes. The state has yet to process provisional ballots, and at least 117,000 absentee ballots have not been received, state election officials said Wednesday.

"The actual casting of ballots has ended but the election is not over," Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections, said Wednesday during a news conference.

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"North Carolina stopped counting votes on election night because there were no more votes to count at that time," Bell said. "There are also no more ballots that could be cast for this election. All eligible ballots have already left the voters' hands."

What remains, explained Bell, is the post-election procedure that follows every election in the state. Provisional ballots must be researched and counted, and absentee ballots, which may be accepted through Nov. 12, must be accepted and counted. Once that is done, each county election board will meet to ratify the results, which then go forward for certification by the state board on Nov. 24.

Just how many provisional ballots or outstanding absentee ballots remain in play to potentially chip away or pad the 76,701-vote gap between Trump and Biden remains to be seen. The county-level election meeting finalizing counts of absentee and accepted provisional ballots will not be held in North Carolina until Nov. 12, Bell said.

NCSBE said it would announce Thursday the number of provisional ballots cast in the election, and those ballots will then be researched as part of their verification.

During the 2016 election, for example, about 61,000 provisional ballots were cast in North Carolina, of which about 27,000 were counted, Bell said.

The number of absentee ballots accepted will not be announced until they're finalized at the county-level election board meetings later next week.

"Regardless of vote differentials, we never stop counting until all eligible votes are counted and added to the final, certified and audited results," she said.