North Carolina is well on the way to having 4 million early ballots cast in the 2024 General Election and at least another million are expected to vote in person on Election Day, now four days away.
So far, the process has gone smoothly, with 3.8 million voters having either mailed in a ballot or visited a polling place during the early voting period, which began on Oct. 17 and ends Saturday, said state Elections Director Karen Brinson Bell.
Nearly 50% of North Carolina’s 7.8 million registered voters have already cast their ballots, according to the State Board of Elections (SBE) daily turnout reports. That’s short of this point in the 2020 election, when 4.1 million North Carolinians had voted, though the state has already beat the number of in-person early voters set that year. An outsized number of voters voted by absentee ballot in 2020 during the COVID pandemic.
“We set records in 2020, even through a pandemic, we had a 75% turnout,” Brinson Bell told reporters on Friday. “And a lot, obviously, a lot of people voted absentee by mail during that time frame, but we still saw the most people turn out during early voting, and we continue to see that election after election. And so we prepare that we are going to have busy early voting sites throughout the entire early voting period, and we have seen that, and I don’t think that the remaining two days will be any exception to that.”
The state is far ahead of votes cast in the 2016 election, when just 2.6 million ballots had been cast with four days to go.
The 420 early voting sites currently open will balloon to more than 2,600 poll polling places across North Carolina open to voters on Nov. 5, Brinson Bell told reporters on Friday. Brinson Bell said the state is committed to carrying out a secure, efficient and safe election process.
“I want to speak to all North Carolina voters, and this is extremely important,” she said.
“Election officials in this state have done and will continue to do everything in our power to conduct a fair, secure and accessible election under the laws of North Carolina every single piece of voting equipment has been tested before this election. All early voting sites and Election Day polling places are staffed with bipartisan trained officials who swear an oath to uphold the law election observers appointed by the political parties also are present at voting sites, adding extra eyes to make sure, processes, and laws are followed.”
So far, the process has remained on track, with few interruptions or interference, despite a tense political environment, Brinson Bell said. Election officials are taking steps to head off any interruptions on Election Day by limiting access to secure areas and establishing rigid rules for the chain of custody of ballots as they are received by county Boards of Election, counted and have totals transmitted to the SBE.
“What we’ve seen is incidents at voting sites have not been directed at election officials,” Brinson Bell said. “It’s mostly still been activity in the electioneering area, the campaigning area, and limited to that. We have not had issues inside of the polling places and or anything directed particularly at election officials that have been harassing or threatening, and that’s good.”
The SBE is committed to counting the state’s votes as quickly and accurately as possible once the polls close at 7:30 p.m. on Election Day. There is a good chance, however, that the count could extend into the early morning hours of Nov. 6, Brinson Bell said. Election officials are barred by state law from commencing the count of even absentee ballots until the polls close. A late and fluid outcome is expected, though that should be no indication that anything nefarious is going on with the vote, she said.
“In terms of post-election, we’re well aware that we’re a battleground state, and there are a lot of eyes on North Carolina, not only for presidential contests, but because we have so many new elected officials that will be coming into our state leadership: new Governor, new Lieutenant Governor, new Attorney General, and on down,” Brinson Bell said.
“We have had to consider what happened to our colleagues in other states, like Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and recognize that, you know, while we hope that we are not subjected to that, we hope that no one subjects an election official to death threats or threatening behavior or protests outside of their election sites or offices. That is, that is not acceptable. Those are crimes, and people have been prosecuted for such.”
