Trump says election results could take days or months. Here’s how NC plans to count.
It’s late, very late, on the night of Nov. 3, 2020. Through fading eyes, North Carolina voters are waiting for the final results in key elections. And when they wake up on Nov. 4, there still are no results in a few races.
It’s a real possibility this year, not just in North Carolina, but in states across the country where many more voters are expected to cast their ballots by mail. In North Carolina, some ballots that arrive after Election Day will be counted.
President Donald Trump has made it clear how he feels about the possibility of not knowing who won certain races, including the presidency, on the night of the election.
“Must know Election results on the night of the Election, not days, months, or even years later!” Trump tweeted on July 30.
Trump’s 2016 Electoral College victory was called by The Associated Press at 2:29 a.m. Many local news outlets wait for the AP’s call in reporting a winner.
The lack of a known election result on Nov. 3 or Nov. 4 would not mean there was fraud, a common Trump refrain.
“It’s always been an unfair expectation ‘in time for your late local news’ on the East Coast,” said David Scott, deputy managing editor of The Associated Press. “It was unfair before the pandemic. It’s definitely unfair in a pandemic now.”
The coronavirus pandemic has led to changes in how voters can cast their ballots. Eight states, mostly in the West, and Washington, D.C., are planning on an all-mail election. Some have previously voted in that manner. Others, including Nevada and California, have added it this year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Most other states, including North Carolina, allow no-excuse absentee voting.
Trump, who votes absentee in Florida, has been against universal mail-in voting in which voters are automatically mailed a ballot, and which he has tried to distinguish from absentee voting in which voters must request a ballot, as in North Carolina.
Most candidates, party officials and North Carolina’s State Board of Elections have stressed they don’t see issues with the state’s systems. The state board released a 12-point statement on “why absentee by-mail voting is safe and secure in North Carolina.”
“In North Carolina, absentee ballots have an authentication process that makes sense. I tell everyone vote absentee. Don’t worry about rain, don’t worry about the events of the day on Election Day. Vote by absentee ballot,” said U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican, during a recent interview on Spectrum. “I think it’s a great way to vote.”
The North Carolina Democratic Party said “every voter has a right to have their ballot counted.”
“It’s likely we won’t have a full result for every race on Election night, but every North Carolinian should have full faith in our non-partisan elections officials to get this right, and any attempt to undermine that faith for partisan gain is a shameful attack on our democracy,” said Seth Morris, the group’s voter protection director, in a statement to McClatchy.
Counting the votes
The state board will begin posting election results on its website shortly after polls close at 7:30 p.m.
“Will we have some — and likely most — results on Election Day? Yes,” Patrick Gannon, the board’s spokesperson, emailed in a response to a series of questions about North Carolina’s process for counting votes.
“Whether the media and/or candidates will be able to call winners (the State Board does not do that) will depend on how close contests are and how many absentee and provisional ballots remain to be counted after Election Day.”
The large national television networks have their own “decision desks” that make calls on races, but most local news outlets rely on The Associated Press. The AP has a process for counting the vote and calling elections.
If local officials count more slowly due to new systems or changes to the way voters vote, that will affect how quickly the AP makes its calls, especially in closely contested races. Scott said the organization is always cautious in making its calls.
“Delay is not necessarily the right word. We’re working through the process of doing the work of democracy,” Scott said. “It doesn’t always happen that when the polls close, we get instantaneous results.”
Gannon said all in-person early voting ballots, all Election Day ballots and absentee by-mail ballots that arrive by Nov. 3 should be counted and reported to the public that night.
State law allows by-mail ballots that are postmarked on or before Election Day and that arrive by 5 p.m. on Nov. 6 to be counted. If an election is tight, those ballots could make a difference.
In 2016, North Carolina’s gubernatorial race was decided by less than 11,000 votes. Its 2014 Senate race was decided by less than 46,000 votes.
Counting votes that arrive after Election Day is not new in North Carolina. But the volume of people voting by mail is expected to set records. In 2016, nearly 200,000 absentee by-mail votes were cast in the presidential election.
Any registered voter in North Carolina can vote by mail, though you must request an absentee ballot. Absentee by-mail request forms must be received at the county board of elections by 5 p.m. on Oct. 27.
Requests for absentee ballots are running more than six times ahead of 2016 day over day, according to near-daily analysis by Michael Bitzer, a politics professor at Catawba College.
Nearly 138,000 requests for absentee by-mail ballots have been made as of Aug. 5. Registered Democrats account for 48% of those with unaffiliated voters making up 34% and registered Republicans at 17%, according to Bitzer’s analysis.
“We do expect more ballots than usual will be counted during the canvass process after election night. We have no way of knowing whether that will delay the calling of winners by the media and/or candidates,” Gannon wrote.
The state board will be able to tell the public how many outstanding absentee ballots have not arrived by Election Day and how many provisional ballots must be considered and counted. Provisional ballots are offered to a voter if there are questions about the voter’s qualifications or eligibility. Once those questions are resolved, the provisional ballot can be counted.
That doesn’t mean all of those absentee ballots will arrive — voters can request one but vote in person, or they could decide not to vote at all. But it does give a sense of how many possible votes are remaining, a key consideration for media outlets trying to make a call on a winner.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published August 7, 2020 at 11:01 AM.
