CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party along with dozens of President Trump supporters all gathered outside the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections Thursday afternoon. There they announced their frustrations with the ballot counting process for this election and the failure to declare Trump and Senator Thom Tillis winners in the Tar Heel State.
Since Election Day, poll workers have been busy gathering, counting and verifying absentee ballots across the state. As of Friday, Nov. 6, the state board says there are about 99,000 absentee ballots outstanding in North Carolina. Those ballots will be accepted until November 12 as long as they're postmarked on or before Nov.3.
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"We want to make sure that we will count everybody’s vote and have everybody tallied so we can produce a true and accurate result,” Mecklenburg County Director of Elections Michael Dickerson said.
But North Carolina Republican leaders believe the truth about all the numbers and all the votes aren’t being shared openly. Instead, they would like to see more transparency.
“We are going to be observing all the openings of the provisional and absentees,” NC GOP Chairman Michael Whatley said. “We have lawyers on the ground in all 100 counties. We want to make sure the board of elections operates in a transparent manner.”
The Republicans say when that happens the voting numbers will reveal what they believe are the true winners in the “too close to call” Presidential and Senate races in North Carolina.
“We understand there has to be provisional and absentees that have to be counted, but they can give us an accurate number and when they do give us an accurate number we can see the outstanding votes that have to be counted are less than the margin Senator Tillis and the President have,” Chairman Whatley said.