For some voters, the process of their vote being counted wasn’t as simple as filling in the bubbles, feeding the tabulator and heading home. If someone forgets their photo ID, an election worker can’t find their voter registration or they showed up at the incorrect precinct, they may fill out a provisional ballot. These ballots are subject to research from boards of elections before being counted.
Notably, this election was the first presidential election where Tar Heel State voters were required to provide photo ID at the polls. Advocates for the controversial law say it was needed to protect the security of elections, but many were opposed, saying it would disproportionately impact voters of color and generally create more barriers to voting.
Election integrity in NC: Will photo ID requirements help or hurt voter access?
So how many people cast provisional ballots and did photo ID provisional ballots impact certain demographics more than others?
Here’s a snapshot of what the provisional ballot data, provided by the North Carolina State Board of Elections shows.
Why did voters cast provisional ballots?
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In total, there were over 65,000 provisional ballots cast this year. In the 2020 presidential election, there were almost 41,000 provisional ballots cast.
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Out of the provisional ballots cast in 2024, about 20,500 were accepted, or 31.5%.
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The most common reason for casting a provisional ballot was having no record of registration with almost 38,000 ballots being cast for that reason. The second most common was the cumulative provisional ballots cast under the five ID-related categories. Almost 7,000 ballots were cast under one of those five categories. In third was voting at an incorrect precinct with around 6,000 ballots cast for this reason.
ID-related provisional ballots
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Of the almost 7,000 provisional ballots cast for voter ID reasons, over 4,000 were approved, while just over 2,000 were not counted (with some others partially counted).
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Overall, 64% of ID-related provisional ballots were accepted, that’s more than double the amount accepted when including all provisional ballot reasons.
Looking at race and ethnicity
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Almost 14,000 provisional ballots were cast by voters who identified as Black. Of those, 32% were accepted. In comparison, 36% of voters who identified as white were accepted.
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When looking solely at ID-related provisional ballots, white voters’ ballots were also accepted more often by about 5 percentage points compared to Black voters.
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Hispanic/Latino identified voters cast a relatively low number of ID-related provisional ballots with 56% being accepted. Non-Latino identified voters’ ballots were accepted by 11 more percentage points.
Diving into party affiliation
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Democrats made up about 34% of provisional ballots cast whereas Republicans and Unaffiliated voters made up about 32%.
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Democrats made up a larger percentage (43.5%) of the total ID-related provisional ballots cast, with Unaffiliated voters trailing behind at almost 30% and Republicans at 25%.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: A look at provisional ballots in NC based on reason, demographics