NEW HANOVER COUNTY, N.C. — There’s been a lot of talk about the nearly 4,000 previously uncounted ballots in New Hanover County.
Those ballots include provisional and absentee ballots, but also absentee ballots that arrived before Election Day. While these ballots won’t affect the presidential race, they could swing the outcome of some tight local races, including county commissioner and the New Hanover County School Board.
North Carolina law says any absentee ballots received before Election Day must be counted on election night. New Hanover County, however, did not include ballots received Nov. 1-Nov. 4 in its count.
The general counsel for the State Board of Elections, Paul Cox, says the county’s error in creating that cutoff was due to the board not having the resources needed for the amount of incoming ballots.
“It didn’t have the resources to get through every single one of that ballots that were coming in before Election Day and carefully review them to make sure that they were eligible,” Cox said, “So what it did was it set a cutoff on Oct. 31 and any ballots that arrived after that time, they were going to set aside for review during the certification period.”
It's standard procedure for absentee ballots received on Election Day to be counted sometime between Election Day and the final canvass 10 days later. By setting an Oct. 31 deadline, however, the county grouped the ballots of the Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday before the election into those ballots received on Election Day. Cox says that last year, this move would have been legal, but not under current law.
“That law changed,” Cox said, “And there was a misunderstanding and miscommunication, and the county board thought it was OK to set that deadline.”
While it may simply be a communication breakdown, there’s been speculation that these actions violated voter integrity.
Cox, however, says that integrity has never been in question, and that the board only got itself into this situation because of good intentions and a respect for the process to ensure a fair election.
“From the perspective of the election officials and the election offices, they need to get it right,” Cox said. “They want to make sure that every eligible ballot is counted, and those ballots are counted and tabulated correctly.”
Cox also said that county residents can feel confident in knowing that any ballots that can be cast will be counted.
“If you cast one of those absentee ballots, and it arrived by election night, and you meet all the eligibility requirements, and you cast your ballot in accordance with the instructions on the absentee ballot envelopes,” Cox said, “Then you will have your ballot counted.”
All eligible ballots were counted before Friday’s canvass meeting, where the boards of elections from all 100 counties across North Carolina will meet to certify the results of the election.