Mecklenburg County Board of Elections delays canvass

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Mecklenburg County Board of Elections delayed finalizing its election results until 5 p.m. on Nov. 28.

The board met Monday night as election workers sorted through provisional ballots and absentee ballots that came in after Election Day.

So the quest to finalize election results in the race for governor in North Carolina continues.

Attorney General Roy Cooper was set to pick up nearly 1,000 more votes until the Board of Elections decided to delay certifying them. Election workers sorted through thousands of provisional and absentee ballots and some were tossed out because the voter was a felon or underage.

The county will accept nearly 4,000 extra votes and Cooper will pick up 977 more than Gov. Pat McCrory, but those votes don't count yet.

A woman successfully protested the Board of Elections because the votes were audited electronically.

The elections director said he used to audit the votes by hand, but this year that would require sorting through 8 ½ miles of paper, and errors could happen.

The board decided to delay the certification so they can get clarification from the state.

The elections director maintains he followed proper procedure.

“I wanted to make sure we did have a correct and accurate tally and we chose to do that by using the vote image log,” director Michael Dickerson said.

Despite the delay, Dickerson expects the vote totals to remain the same.

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