Elections don’t end on Election Night. After every election, elections officials conduct a series of audits and recounts, when necessary, to confirm the election results known as canvass. The election results were finalized by each county today (on Friday). During canvass provisional ballots are certified and the votes are finalized. Local canvass is generally completed in the 10-day period following the election.
Pasquotank County Board of Elections Director Emma Tate explained that vote totals are expected to change after election night.
“This is a normal part of the process that every county goes through. You will see small changes in the results following election night, because of the inclusion of ballots that were legally cast on or before election day that have to be tabulated after election day,” Tate said.
While there are 10 days to finalize the count, the deadline to protest an election is different based on the reason for protest. If there is an issue with the election outside of the vote counting, then the protest must be filed before Election Day.
Voter registration challenges may be filed any time of year, but the challenge must be filed before the voter casts their ballot on Election Day. Similarly, a candidate challenge must be filed no later than 10 business days after the close of the candidates filing period, according to the NC BOE.
Voter challenges don’t happen very often. There were only 358 complaints made to the state board between September 2020 and January 2022. Of those, only 61 cases were referred to the local district attorneys for further investigation.
During local canvass in Sylva, voters were waiting for all the ballots to be counted to find out who would win the last two seats on town council – or if this year would result in another coin toss. The Jackson County Board of Elections accepted 8 out of 10 provisional ballots.
Challengers Mark Jones and Blitz Estridge won the undecided seats following canvass, the Sylva Herald reported. Both had 210 votes while Ben Guiney, who had previously been part of the tie, received 206 votes.
Both winners told BPR they were running because of the expansion of Highway 107.
“There's going to be a lot of uncomfortableness. There's going to be a lot of controversy over what's going to take place. And so we've just got to get on the right way of thinking and how we can get the voters - and all the people in Jackson County as well as visitors - to be able to go see town without having such an issue,” Mark Jones said on Election Day.
Blitz Estridge has lived in Sylva for 34 years. He agrees that the highway project has been his main focus. There has been a concern that to support local businesses and the town during the road expansion project that taxes will need to be raised. That is a non-starter for Estridge.
“I know that I will vote “no” on a property tax increase,” Estridge said. He’s now 47 years old.
After the state election results are finalized, the newly elected candidates will be sworn in.
The state board of elections meets November 28 to finalize the results.
Here's more info on how post-election audits work from the NC Board of Elections.
