Wilson County election results to be delayed by 30 minutes
One polling location in Wilson County will remain open an extra 30 minutes Tuesday.
The NC Board of Elections agreed to extend the opening time of the Gardners School polling place because of printing problems Tuesday morning.
The polling place opened as scheduled at 6:30 a.m. but when the first voter arrived at 6:40 a.m. workers discovered they could not print authorization forms. That problem continued until 8:07 a.m. So no voters were able to vote at this precinct until then.
Workers said they turned away 10 voters from 6:40 - 8:07 a.m. However, four of those did come back to vote later. It is unclear how many other voters learned about the problem at the polling place and changed their plans.
The NC Board of Elections held an emergency meeting Tuesday afternoon to debate extending polling hours at that precinct because of the printing problem. The Board has the authority to vote on extending poll hours on a case-by-case basis.
Board members discussed the issue with some pointing out the problem appeared to affect so few voters but all agreeing they wanted to avoid the possibility of disenfranchising any voters. So they voted unanimously to extend the precinct's hours by 30 minutes.
Because of this, no precinct in Wilson County will be able to report results until 8 p.m. That is a new policy of the NC Board of Elections. Previously, all counties in the state would have to delay their reporting until all polls were closed. The Board changed that policy in 2022 to only affect the county where a precinct remained open.