New Hanover County Board of Elections gives status update for uncounted ballots
"Every ballot that should be counted by law or regulation or state board guidance will be counted. We will go through the rigor to make sure that happens."
NEW HANOVER COUNTY (WWAY)–One week ago, we were awaiting the results of the general election. In New Hanover County, thousands of absentee and provisional ballots are still uncounted. Tuesday, the New Hanover County Board of Elections held a meeting to discuss when those remaining votes will be counted.
The meeting was to give status on where the Board of Elections is with ballots. They started Tuesday’s meeting by saying they plan to have every absentee, overseas, and provisional ballot counted by Thursday.
According to Bruce Kemp with the New Hanover County Board of Elections, there are 1,912 provisional ballots not counted yet. Of those ballots, 1,474 are recommended for approval, which Kemps said two sets of eyes from staff have reviewed. 335 ballots have affidavits rather than photo IDs. 13 ballots are cures, where the voter is notified of a deficiency, and the voter gives a signature needed for approval. 90 ballots are pending from the outside ballot being loose, so they have to be approved during a board meeting. However, 1,195 ballots were not approved because the voter was not registered. Kemp ensures that every ballot will be reviewed by Thursday.
“Every ballot that should be counted by law or regulation or state board guidance will be counted. We will go through the rigor to make sure that happens. The board will ask specific questions about ballots, and we will look at many of them ourselves,” Kemp said.
Recently, the county’s attorneys suggested the board of elections office retain their own legal counsel for the mishap. WWAY asked Kemp how that process was going. However, Kemp declined to comment.
Despite that, the Board of Elections budget has been increased by 14% for 2024 and 4.5% for 2025. They also received $1.7 million for this election cycle. WWAY proceeded to ask him, since the state board of elections foreseen problems of high volume ballots ahead of election night, why didn’t they provide enough resources to count ballots and steer away from an October 31st deadline?
“My understanding is the staff endeavors to work on the most important things and urgent things timely and to the best of their ability. They will shift resources from different places. One of the things that they did was increase the staffing for curbside voting because the curbside lines were long in terms of time,” Kemp said.
The next board of elections meeting is scheduled for Thursday, November 14th. They plan to have every vote counted by then and final results shortly after.
