NC State Board of Elections will certify the 2024 election results Friday
RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- The North Carolina State Board of Elections will certify Friday morning the results of the 2024 election.
At 11 a.m., each of the state's 100 county boards held a canvass meeting. They will confirm all ballots cast are valid, accurately counted and included in election results.
Canvass is the official process of determining whether the votes have been counted and tabulated correctly.
For the past ten days, county boards have been sorting through absentee and provisional ballots. Statewide, there were over 65,000 provisional ballots cast with reasons ranging from showing up at the wrong location to forgetting a photo ID.
Some of the state races, such as the Supreme Court race, could come down to provisional ballots.
"(Those) have to be researched, audited. They go through multiple audits," Olivia McCall, the director of Wake County Board of Elections, said. "We actually get reports that we cross-reference with."
Specifically, Wake County had about 4,000 absentee ballots and over 6,000 provisional ballots. The county elections board is going through 70 different challenges:
- 45 deceased voters, meaning people who died after they voted
- 12 with felony convictions
- 2 were noncitizens
- 11 in various categories of already voted
A challenge does not necessarily mean the vote is dismissed, but it does require the board to discuss the circumstances.
SEE ALSO | NC redistricting may have been key to national GOP House win
For statewide elections, the margin needed for second-place candidates to call for a recount is 10,000 votes. For other races, the margin is 1%. A candidate has until noon next Tuesday to request a recount.
Election officials said first there will be a machine count and if those do not reverse results, a candidate has 24 hours to demand a hand-to-eye recount. This will be done on a sample of 3% of ballots.
From 2000 to 2023, an analysis by FairVote revealed that there were only 36 statewide recounts out of nearly 7,000 general elections. Of these recounts, just three led to election outcome reversals.
ABC11's Michael Perchick contributed to this report.
