Chuck Hubbard, the Democrat, leads Rep. Virginia Foxx by 99 votes in the 5th District, 139,034 to 138,935, in the unofficial State Board results. Unofficial being the operative word. This week, county boards work through the remaining ballots and complete their canvasses, and the State Board's canvass follows Nov. 24. A few of the vote-type buckets these numbers are sitting in may seem similar or confusing.
You may have heard Boone Mayor Dalton George call for volunteers to help cure ballots, and Foxx call for House observers, and figured they sound like the same thing. They aren't.
Provisional
A provisional ballot is a ballot cast under a cloud. The voter's eligibility is in question, so it gets set aside instead of counted until the county board checks it out. Common reasons are no photo ID, a name that isn't on the pollbook, incomplete registration information under the state's Registration Repair program, like a missing driver's license or Social Security number, or the wrong precinct.
Say you walk into the wrong precinct and insist on voting there anyway. You're not on that pollbook, so you don't get a regular ballot. The poll workers are required to tell you about the other option. You sign a statement that you're a registered voter and eligible, fill out a provisional ballot, and then it waits for the county board.
From there it's the county board's problem. Staff look you up and figure out where you're registered. The board then decides if your ballot counts in full, in part or not at all. That depends on where you actually live. Your vote counts in the contests you're eligible to vote in at your home address, and it skips any that only exist on the other precinct's ballot. Not the poll worker, not a campaign. Anyone who votes provisionally can find out whether the ballot counted, and if it didn't, why. The county has to offer a way to check, and it's free.
If you voted provisional, you probably know it. You signed a statement and got a different ballot than the person next to you. Here's what to do today. It works the same in every county in the district.
- Check if your ballot needs anything. Call or stop by your county elections office and ask. Watauga's is at 842 W. King St., Suite 6, in Boone, 828-265-8061. Ashe's is at 150 Government Circle, Suite 2100, in Jefferson, 336-846-5570.
- If you didn't have photo ID at the polls, bring an acceptable photo ID to your county board by noon Tuesday, Nov. 10. The state sets that deadline, not your county. If you filled out a Photo ID Exception Form at the polling place, your ballot is considered under that process instead.
- If you're on the state's Registration Repair list, ask your county board whether it has the driver's license or Social Security number it's missing, and by when it needs it.
- If you forgot to sign the affidavit on your provisional ballot, the county board has to notify you, and you can fix it by the same noon deadline.
- Go to your county's meeting if you want to watch. Every county board meets Tuesday to count provisionals, and it's open to the public. Times vary. Watauga's is at 1 p.m. Ashe's starts at 10 a.m. at its elections office, right after its audit.
- Find out what happened. After the board decides, you're entitled to know whether your ballot counted and, if it didn't, why. The county has to offer a way to check, and it's free.
Cure
To cure a ballot is to fix a mail-in ballot that came back with a problem. North Carolina calls those absentee ballots, and cure is mostly a term for them. If the flaw can be fixed with extra paperwork from the voter, the county board has to tell you about it.
Say you mail in your absentee ballot and forget to sign the voter certification. Or you signed the application in the wrong place. Or you sent neither a photocopy of your photo ID nor the ID exception form that can stand in for it. The county board has to notify you promptly and tell you how to fix it, and a missing ID can be fixed by email. Get the fix to the board by noon Tuesday and the ballot gets counted that day.
Not every mistake is fixable. Under state law, the identification of the two people who witnessed your ballot is not curable.
Provisional ballots mostly get reviewed, not cured. County staff research the voter, and the county board votes on whether it counts. If it does, it gets added to the results at canvass. The exception is a provisional ballot missing the voter's signature on the affidavit, which can be fixed by the same noon Tuesday deadline.
Observers
An observer is a House or Senate employee designated in writing by the chair or ranking member of the House Administration Committee or the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration to watch how an election is run. A 2024 federal law gives them "full access to clearly observe" anywhere ballots are processed, counted, audited or certified. They can ask election officials questions. Their job is to watch and report back to the committee, and running the election is not part of it.
Say one shows up Tuesday at a county board meeting and gets curious about a provisional ballot sitting on the table. They can't pick it up. The law bars observers from handling ballots or equipment, campaigning, or interfering with a voter or the people running the election. An election official with a reasonable basis to think an observer is intimidating voters, deceiving them or disrupting election administration can remove them, then has 24 hours to explain why to the committee in writing. An observer can't be removed just for being in the room. The law says "mere presence" is not grounds for removal.
Observers don't count, accept, reject or certify anything. We went through the rules.
Who decides
Each county board votes on its own county's ballots. The State Board's list, updated Nov. 2, names five members per county, two Democrats, two Republicans and a chair.
In Watauga, that's chair Perry Yates, Democrats Terry Cirone and Elaine Rothenberg, and Republicans Leta Councill and Aaron Miller. Matthew Snyder runs the staff.
In Ashe, it's chair Joe Everett, Democrats Jane Banks and Charlotte Blake, and Republicans Phil Rhyne and Terry Wagoner.
This week
- Mon, Nov. 9, 9 a.m.: Watauga's hand-to-eye audit. A bipartisan team hand-counts the U.S. Senate contest in two randomly selected voting groups and compares the result with the machine tally.
- Tue, Nov. 10, 10 a.m.: Ashe's audit, followed by its provisional ballot meeting.
- Tue, Nov. 10, noon: deadline to cure an absentee ballot or bring photo ID for a provisional one.
- Tue, Nov. 10, 1 p.m.: Watauga's board meets in the County Commissioners' Board Room to count provisionals and cured absentees.
- Thu, Nov. 12, 5 p.m.: last day for military and overseas absentee ballots mailed by Election Day to arrive at county elections offices.
- Fri, Nov. 13, 11 a.m.: county canvass, in Watauga and Ashe. County boards review and certify local contests and authenticate the results of contests under State Board jurisdiction.
The rest of the month
- Tue, Nov. 17, noon: deadline to demand a recount, in writing, in contests under State Board jurisdiction.
- Tue, Nov. 24, 11 a.m.: State Board canvass, when results for statewide and State Board-jurisdiction contests are certified.
The audits, county board meetings and canvasses are open to the public. Much of how a 99-vote race ends gets decided in a county board room on a weekday afternoon, in front of anyone who shows up. Go watch. Bring a chair.