2024 Election: Cooper appoints interim labor commissioner until Farley is sworn-in

Polls are officially closed and Election Day 2024 is over in North Carolina.

Well...almost all polls are closed. Wilson County had a slight hiccup Tuesday morning that caused the North Carolina Board of Elections to approve specific locations to remain open until 8 p.m. Plus, anyone still in line at a polling location when it closes will be allowed to remain in line and cast their vote.

The biggest race on everybody's mind is for 47th President of the United States. Candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have blitzed North Carolina in the past month -- trying to ensure they secure the state's 16 electoral college votes.

But there are plenty of other down ballot races that will have a major impact on how North Carolina moves forward over the next several years.

ABC11 will have live election coverage on television and wherever you stream ABC11 throughout the evening and into Wednesday.

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.

First-time and long-time voters are lining up Tuesday morning for Election Day.

While 57% of registered voters have already cast their ballots, millions more will still flock to the polls across North Carolina, including in Wake, Cumberland and Durham counties.

ABC11 caught up with Joseph Pike headed to the polling place at Cliffdale Recreation Center in Cumberland County.

"I'm feeling excited. Yes, I'm looking forward to it," he said. "I feel that if I don't, it could go one way or the other. I figure every vote is important."

ABC11 is tracking Election Day's turnout. There are more than 227,000 registered voters in Cumberland County.

We also caught up with another voter, Cherise Hawkins of Durham County. Why so early? She said she did not want to miss the opportunity to vote.

"I think it's very important for us to get out and vote and just have the right people in the right chairs and then right seats," Hawkins said.

Polling places will be open until 7:30 p.m.

"I think it's very important for us to get out and vote," Cherise Hawkins, a voter in Durham County, said.

The executive director of the State Board of Elections and their general counsel hosted a news conference on Tuesday.

Karen Brinson Bell said there were no major incidents to report from any polling locations across the state.

In the coming days, all 100 county boards of elections will count the presidential contest by hand on ballots from the chosen Election Day precincts, in-person early voting sites, or absentee-by-mail ballots.

Then, they will compare the totals with the results of the voting machine counts.