Even Helene’s devastating impact in western North Carolina could not dampen the enthusiasm of the state’s registered voters.

More than 3.7 million voters across the state had cast ballots in person as of Friday afternoon, and early voting continued until 3 p.m. Saturday. So far, with absentee ballots by mail, turnout in 2024 has surpassed 4 million voters, or more than 51% of registered voters in the state.

“This surpasses the total early voting turnout in 2020, when more than 3,629,000 voters cast early ballots,” Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, told reporters in an online press conference Friday morning.

Brinson Bell said voter turnout in western North Carolina counties hit by Helene outpaced the rest of the state, although the devastating storm forced local election officials to change hours in some places and relocate some polling places.

In his speech, Brinson Bell paid tribute to what he called “the resilient and strong people of Western North Carolina.”

Strong turnout is expected on Election Day

Election officials still expect another million voters to flock to the polls on Tuesday, Election Day, when polls open at 6:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m. But Brinson Bell said election officials were prepared for high turnout on Election Day. .

“Our job is to figure out the logistics, figure out line management, figure out field management and get ready for 100% participation,” Brinson Bell said. he said. “I don’t know if we’ll ever see it, but we’d love to see it.”

“And,” he added, “if we can break even better than the 75% turnout we had in 2020, we’re ready for it.”

He reminded voters that many counties have implemented online trackers that provide information about wait times at polling places.

During early voting, a voter can go to any polling place in their county, but on Election Day voters must go to their assigned precinct in person.

For Helene evacuees who are temporarily housed away from their home county, they can drop off their ballot at an early voting site or local election office in the county where they are staying.

Not all votes will be counted at the end of Election Day

As always, people will have to wait for the final official results for the elections. While the results of many races will be known once the polls close on Election Day, there will still be a large number of ballots to be counted and processed in the following days during the 10-day period known as county elections.

As Paul Cox, chief counsel for the state election board, explains, not all votes are counted on Election Day, but are processed ten days later by county boards of elections during the post-election audit period that culminates in the county certification or poll.

Mail-in ballots sent by military citizens and overseas citizens can be received within nine days after Election Day or the day before the county election.

Under state law, ballots received by the county board of elections on Election Day will be counted during the post-election voting period, according to Cox. Then there are provisional ballots, which are cast by voters who, for example, arrive at the wrong precinct or arrive at a polling site without photo identification and fill out an exception form or bring a valid form of identification to their local board of elections before the election. district survey.

Cox noted that 2024 is the first year that photo identification is required for general elections, let alone presidential races.

“What that means is that the number of provisional ballots we will see in this election may be higher than what we are used to,” Cox said.

The closer the race, the longer it may take for results to be finalized due to outstanding votes that must be processed and counted after Election Day.

Election officials braced for unrest

Brinson Bell said he and other election officials were aware that North Carolina was gaining attention as a potential battleground state in the presidential race. He said he and his colleagues needed to acknowledge the post-election unrest in states like Georgia and Pennsylvania in 2020, when Donald Trump and his supporters protested the results of that year’s presidential election based on unsubstantiated claims of fraud.

Brinson Bell said he hopes no election officials will be subjected to threats or harassment this year, “but knowing that it happened means it could happen again.”

Brinson Bell said county election offices are taking precautions to protect their staff and ensure the integrity of the election process.

“In some cases,” he explained, “this is because panic buttons have been installed in some offices, bulletproof glass has been installed in some offices, others have changed the structure of their entryways to still be transparent in their processes but limit access to secure areas.”