A few updates on the potential votes left to count in North Carolina, as of new data 11/6 AM.
We're now looking at a *maximum ceiling* of 171,000 potential uncounted votes.
To see how that breaks down, let's get into the math! #ncpol
Outstanding mail-in ballot requests now down to ~98,000. As expected, it's ticked down over the last few days as ballots arrive. But:
- Many ballots may never be returned/returned on time
- This doesn't account for voters who changed their minds and voted on Election Day.
County Election Boards have so far received ~32,000 accepted mail-in ballots since Election Day. But those ballots have not yet been included in the state's unofficial results. er.ncsbe.gov/?election_dt=1…
They need to be approved by county boards in open meetings first.
Most of the 100 county boards in NC will wait until Nov. 12 (the deadline) to meet and count/tally these ballots. But some, like Mecklenburg County, start doing that today.
Next up: provisional ballots, which voters cast if there are problems at the polls. The state reported yesterday there are about 41,000 of those.
Not all will be counted though. In 2016, just over half were NOT counted. Will that proportion hold in 2020?
So taken together:
As of Friday (11/6), 6 a.m.
~ 98,000 outstanding mail-in ballots
~ 32,000 "untallied", accepted by mail since Election Day
~ 41,000 provisional (as of Thursday)
--------
171,000 total
But that 171k figure is -- and I cannot stress this enough -- an *absolute maximum* of potential uncounted ballots.
The real figure is likely to fall far short for the caveats noted above.
Worth watching over the next few days how many mail-in ballots (postmarked by Election Day) come in through Nov. 12.
The story so far:
ballot_rtn_dt Accepted
------------- | -------
11/03/2020 | 21,573
11/04/2020 | 5,545
11/05/2020 | 4,750
My hunch is that Election Day was likely to be a high point, but we'll have to wait and see what the long tail of these ballots' arrival actually is through Nov. 12.
Updated our story trying to make sense of potential ballots left to count in NC w/ additional caveats about accepted, but untallied ballots.
About to get more complicated to track after counties meet to officially accept, but we'll add info as we get it. newsobserver.com/news/politics-…
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First up: outstanding absentee ballots. An analysis of data as of Thursday AM shows about 108,000 in the "outstanding absentee".
That number is expected to decrease over the next few days, as it did between today and yesterday, when it was at about 116,000.
This number is a measure of the outstanding requests for mail-in ballots, but has a few big caveats:
- Not all of will be returned
- Not all will be sent by Nov. 3/arrive before Nov. 12
- Number doesn't account (yet!) for the people who change their mind and vote in person
NC State Board of Elections has a livestreaming coming up on the post-election process in North Carolina. Tune in here: newsobserver.com/news/politics-…#ncpol
Per @NCSBE Director Karen Brinson Bell, number of estimated outstanding ballot still stands at 117,000.
Board still working to gather number of provisional ballots, but under state law, report on the number of those ballots is due by noon Thursday. #NCpol
Brinson Bell, of @NCSBE: "With very few exceptions will North Carolina's numbers move before the 12th or the 13th." #ncpol
For those of you wondering how national reporters are getting estimates of 200,000-300,000 outstanding mail-in ballots in North Carolina, so are we.
Actually, we're not. It's wrong.
The number to watch is about 117,000 estimated outstanding ballots, per state data.
And again, big caveats: 1) Based on ballot requests, so some won't be counted because they weren't:
a) Postmarked by 11/3
b) Received by 11/12
c) Sent at all
d.) Properly completed 2) Doesn't account for outstanding ballots where voters voted on Election Day
NOW LET'S TALK PROVISIONALS Y'ALL
Provisionals are *different* than absentee by-mail ballots. We don't know how many provisionals were cast yet in North Carolina.