CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Across the country and in North Carolina, the waiting game continues. In the tar heel state, the presidential and Senate races remain too close to call. It likely will not be until next week when every vote in the state is counted and final results can be tallied.
In the meantime, elections officials are working on other necessary procedures making sure the election is accurate.
There's no vote counting happening inside of the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections right now. That's because every vote that can be counted already has been counted. Officials waiting for more of those mail-in ballots to come in.
A record number of votes were cast, but the counting is on pause.
“We’ve counted every vote that we can,” said Michael Dickerson, the Director of Elections in Mecklenburg County.
That doesn't mean there isn't work to be done at the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections, and their counterparts in the other 99 counties in North Carolina.
Mail-in ballots postmarked by election day can be accepted up until November 12th.
There are roughly 99,000 outstanding absentee ballots in the state, 14,900 of them in Mecklenburg County, that could still be in the mail. The voters also could have gone in person on Tuesday or decided not to vote in the election.
Michael Dickerson and his team are working on verifying the ballots they receive. They're checking those for the proper signatures.
“A couple thousand right now that we're going through. Usually the bulk of mine come back by Thursday and Friday of this week after the election,” said Dickerson.
This year, more than 40,766 North Carolinians filled out provisional, 2,483 of them are in Mecklenburg County. Poll workers now researching and validating those ballots, so they can be counted too.
“We want to make sure that we will count everybody’s vote and have everybody tallied so we can produce a true and accurate result,” said Dickerson.
The processes happening right now are normal, and a good thing for the integrity of this election. It may feel slower this election because important races are so close and results could hinge on the ballots still possibly on their way back.
At 5 o’clock Friday, election officials will start counting the couple thousand absentee ballots that have come in since Election Day. All of that is done in a public meeting.
“It's an open meeting, public meeting, so we'll make sure we do everything out in the open, nothings hidden from anybody,” said Dickerson.
Anyone can go. Party and candidate committees will likely be watching the count.
Thursday, a group of President Trump’s supporters gathered outside of the elections office, as groups have in other states.
“We’ll have to be prepared for the situation if it does, but there's nothing we can really do about that except this is part of our process. In North Carolina we are doing nothing different than we have always done,” said Dickerson.