Pender County Board of Elections issues statement on results delay

PENDER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — Pender County experienced a lengthy delay in releasing its election results on Tuesday. The county blames malfunctioning computers and printers for the delay. 

Results for the county did not start coming in until around 1 am Wednesday, well after other counties across the state sent in their numbers.

For reference, complete results for Columbus and Bladen Counties were reported before 10:30 pm Tuesday, with results for Brunswick and New Hanover County finishing before 11:30 pm. The Pender County Board of Elections released a statement to WWAY that reads: 

“On Primary Day in Pender County, all precincts opened on time, allowing voters to successfully cast their ballots. “Our most important job is to ensure that every voter’s votes are counted and that elections in Pender County are administered in accordance with state law. Ensuring the integrity of the election results is more important than reporting results quickly,” said Pender County Elections Director Greg Jackson. 

When Jackson learned early Tuesday morning that computers and printers at some precincts were not functioning properly, he immediately moved to put contingency plans in place to conduct the election. 

“We are required to have these plans in place and to train precinct officials on how to implement contingency plans. We always hope that we don’t need to use our contingency plans, but yesterday we did. I am proud of the work that our elections officials did to ensure the integrity of the Primary Election in Pender County in the face of unexpected technical difficulties,” Jackson added. 

The computer issue affected the voter check-in process, an issue State Board of Elections executive director Karen Brinson Bell said put the county behind on getting its results tallied.

“So with Pender County, we just had a situation where things did not go seamlessly on election morning,” Brinson Bell said. “They had issues with the check-in computers and that meant that they moved to manual process. And at that point, they’re dealing with the precinct results that they’re trying to reconcile against a manual check-in process and that just took time. And because of all of these things happening simultaneously and rather than making multiple result postings throughout the night, they were staying focused on getting the results right.” 

The Pender County Board of Elections is made up of three Democrats and two Republicans. Carol Ann Johnson a Democratic appointee, and board chair “It is the solemn duty of the members of the Board of Elections to oversee the County elections staff and all precinct officials, and to ensure that every vote is appropriately counted.” She added, “We don’t need to wait for the dust to settle on this election, as every vote was counted properly.” 

In total, 10,506 ballots were cast in the Primary Election in Pender County across 18 precincts in the County, including early voting. The results are unofficial until the Pender County Board of Elections completes the ballot canvass later this month. Those results will be certified to the State Board of Elections. 

Pender County was the last County in the State to report results on Primary Day, but County officials are very confident that the election was administered appropriately despite the timing of the results being reported. A State Board of Elections official was in Pender County on Primary Day and observed and assisted Pender County officials with election processes.”