Absentee ballot being handled by an employee of the Wake County Board of Elections. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)
Nearly 5.7 million people in North Carolina voted in this year’s general election. Now, local county elections boards have more than 60,000 provisional ballot applications to check to see how many votes can be added to candidate totals.
Elections officials in the larger counties have the most provisional ballot research to do, of course.
According to the latest numbers from the state Board of Elections, Wake County has more than 6,000 provisional ballot applications. Mecklenburg County has more than 5,000. Election boards must decide by Nov. 15 how many votes from provisional ballots to count. Local boards of election met to certify results on Friday, Nov. 15.
People who cast provisional ballots also fill out a form, called an application, with information elections officials use to decide whether they are eligible to vote.
Voters cast provisional ballots for a number of reasons. Some don’t have a photo ID. Some go to the wrong precinct.
This is the first general election where the photo voter ID law has been in effect. State data show that relatively few people, 1,625, who didn’t have an ID with them were told to show one at their county elections office by the end of business Thursday, Nov. 14. Usually, these voters have ID but forget to bring it with them to vote.
Democracy North Carolina and other voting rights groups are working to contact those voters to remind them they need to show their ID in order for their votes to count, said Katelin Kaiser, Democracy NC policy director.
The most cited reason for voters casting provisional ballots is that poll workers could not find them on the voter rolls. That happened 23,211 times.
Kaiser said she wasn’t surprised how often that happens. From calls into the voter hotline, it seems people don’t realize that when they move within the state that their voter registration doesn’t automatically transfer to their new county, she said. And some callers said that they registered at the DMV but were told when they showed up to vote that they weren’t on the rolls.
In cases of missing DMV voter registrations, counties are supposed to check whether people applied before the deadline.
More than 20 states allow voters to register on Election Day, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Kaiser is thinking that advocacy groups might try to convince North Carolina to join them.
Poll workers told nearly 550 people they had to cast provisional ballots because records showed that they already voted.
That happens when father and son share a name or when people have common names, Kaiser said. When voters relay that problem in calls to the hotline, they’re advised to call their county boards to explain how Jr. and Sr. were mixed up, she said.
Democracy NC, Common Cause North Carolina, You Can Vote, and other voting rights groups are planning to have people monitor county canvasses around the state, Kaiser said.