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When will we know who won the election in North Carolina?

Elections chief Karen Brinson Bell says North Carolina officials are optimistic all votes will be tallied around midnight on Election Day.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When North Carolina's polls close at 7:30 p.m. on Election Day, don't expect winners to be announced immediately. 

"People are not realistic in their expectations of when we'll see results," Karen Brinson Bell, the executive director of the State Board of Elections, said. 

From 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., ballots from all 2,600 precincts statewide will be driven to local county boards of elections, where they'll be tabulated and uploaded to state software. Brinson Bell said that means many results will be released between 9:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. All final results should be submitted by midnight. 

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"We managed to get results out completely by 12:28 a.m. in 2020," she said. "So we're shooting for that again as sometime around midnight. Hopefully, all of the unofficial results will be uploaded." 

Unofficial being the key word. State election officers will meet 10 days after the election to verify the results during the canvassing process. 

Contact Ben Thompson at bthompson@wcnc.com and follow him on Facebook, X and Instagram.

WCNC Charlotte will have live election coverage of all the local and statewide elections starting at 7 p.m. on Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 5 on streaming on WCNC+, and all election results can be found by texting the word ELECTION to 704-329-3600 or going to WCNC Charlotte's election page.

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