Special to Iredell Free News

RALEIGH — The State Board of Elections on Tuesday unanimously certified the results of the October and November 2023 municipal elections in North Carolina.

On October 10, municipal elections and nonpartisan primaries were held in 20 of North Carolina’s 100 counties. Nearly 75,000 voters cast ballots, or a turnout of about 10.6 percent of the approximately 705,000 voters eligible to vote in these contests.

On November 7, municipal elections were held in 465 municipalities across 86 counties. More than 515,000 voters cast ballots, or a turnout of about 15.9 percent of the approximately 3.25 million voters eligible to vote in these contests.

The Board voted 5–0 to canvass the votes cast in all ballot items within the jurisdiction of the State Board and authenticate the count in every ballot item in those elections.

“Canvass” means the entire process of determining that the votes have been counted and tabulated correctly, culminating in the authentication of the official election results. In municipal elections, the State Board canvasses the votes cast in multicounty contests and authenticates the count in every ballot item in the counties by determining that the votes have been counted and tabulated correctly.

This certification came after the county boards of elections with elections in October or November certified results at the county level and after a series of post-election audits by election officials verified the counts.

“After extremely hard work by county elections offices across North Carolina, today we made sure that the votes of nearly 600,000 voters counted in these important municipal elections,” Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said.

Post-election Audits and Recounts

After every election, elections officials conduct a series of audits to confirm the election results. In particularly close contests, county boards of elections may recount the ballots in accordance with state law.

“These audits and recounts once again showed that voters can trust the certified and tested voting equipment to accurately count ballots in North Carolina elections, and they can trust their local election officials to ensure that eligible voters were able to cast their ballots,” Brinson Bell said.