Alayna Paul said she was excited to participate in her first election.
"It was all very new to me," the 18-year-old Durham resident said.
Paul went to her polling place on Election Day with her grandmother, who had to use curbside voting.
Paul does not have a driver's license and as an online college student she didn't have a school-issued ID she could use for voting, which meant she had to cast a .
"I didn't even know what a provisional ballot was before that day," Paul said.
Voters cast provisional ballots for a variety of reasons. Most often, it's because when they show up to vote, poll workers can't find a record of their registration.
Paul Cox, general counsel for the North Carolina State Board of Elections explained that a poll worker checking in a voter might tell them: "Sorry, you're not on the registration records but we have an opportunity for you to vote a provisional ballot."
Cox said the voter in that situation would then be instructed to fill out the provisional ballot application, which gets researched by county elections board staff.
If, in fact, the voter previously did attempt to register or was in the registration records, perhaps with a different spelling of their name or some other clerical discrepancy, then their ballot would get counted. But if, as in most cases, the voter was not registered then their provisional ballot would not get counted.
This year, county elections boards are processing more than 67,000 provisional ballots.
Around 6,000 were cast because the voter lacked a photo ID. This year's presidential election cycle is the first with a photo ID requirement in place in North Carolina.
Paul was one of around 2,000 voters who cast a provisional ballot and opted to return to their local elections board before the end of the canvass period to present a valid ID.
"Show up to your county board of elections during business hours up until 5 p.m. on Nov. 14, and they'll be able to show their ID and, what we call, 'cure' their provisional ballot," Cox explained.
Paul registered to vote last month and had her photo taken at the Durham County Board of Elections to get a free voter ID. But she hasn't gone back yet to retrieve the ID.
So, will she do so by Thursday's 5 p.m. deadline?
"Yeah, for sure, now that I know," Paul told 瓜神app.
Choices like that could be crucial down the stretch for some political contests still being counted. The statewide race for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court is down to fewer than 8,000 votes. Republican Jefferson Griffin leads Allison Riggs, the Democratic incumbent who has not conceded yet.
In thousands of other cases, voters 鈥� like ones in western North Carolina affected by Helene who might have lost their IDs due to a natural disaster, or who lack transportation to be able to get an ID at their local elections office 鈥� cast a provisional ballot and filled out an exception form.
"Those get reviewed by the county board of elections, the bipartisan county board of elections, during canvass period," said Cox. "By and large, those get approved."
To reject them, the bipartisan boards must find unanimously that the claimed exception lacks credibility.
There are many other reasons voters cast provisional ballots, such as showing up at the wrong precinct on Election Day. In those cases, their provisional ballots might only get partially counted.
"But only for the contests they're eligible to vote in," said Cox, explaining that the provisional ballot for a voter who showed up at the wrong precinct would count for statewide races like president and Supreme Court justice but not a city council member who's not in the voter's district.
The canvass process is open to the public, including the county elections board meetings to review and count provisional ballots. And with close races still to determine, Paul Cox said those proceedings could draw a lot of attention.
"Those are the sort of things that are closely watched and heavily litigated over by the parties and their candidates when you have very close contests," he said.
Only around a third of provisional ballots end up getting approved and counted. But even if the final tally doesn't turn an election outcome around, it could result in a recount.
For a statewide race like the one for Supreme Court justice, a runner-up could demand a recount if they trail by 10,000 votes or fewer.
