Election results 2020: Why the presidential race hasn't been called in North Carolina
The race between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden is extremely close and still too early to call. That's largely because of absentee and provisional ballots.
ABC News and The Associated Press have not yet declared a winner in North Carolina's presidential election.
Many other states have been called -- so what's the hold up in the Tar Heel state?
Well, here, the race between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden is extremely close and still too early to call. That's largely because of absentee and provisional ballots.
How ABC News makes its election projections
Trump is only leading Biden by about 76,000 votes in North Carolina. Trump has 2,732,084 votes versus Biden's 2,655,383. There are 7,361,219 registered voters in North Carolina.
NORTH CAROLINA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RESULTS
*Counties are colored red or blue when the % expected vote reporting reaches a set threshold. This threshold varies by state and is based on patterns of past vote reporting and expectations about how the vote will report this year.
There are currently 116,200 outstanding mail-in ballots.
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Of those, about 43,000 were registered Democrat, 26,500 were registered Republican and about 45,000 were unaffiliated.
Absentee ballots had to be postmarked on or before Election Day and they are counted as long as they are received by the county board of elections by 5 p.m. Nov. 12. Any mail-in ballot that arrived after 5 p.m. on Monday did not count toward the Election Day total.
Provisional ballots also haven't yet been counted.
At noon on Thursday, the State Board of Elections reported that 40,766 were submitted. Provisional ballots cast on Election Day must still be researched to determine voter eligibility. Most of the provisional ballots were cast in Wake and Mecklenburg counties with 3,437 and 2,483 respectively.
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In 2016, State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said, North Carolina had 61,000 provisional ballots. Less than half, approximately 27,000, ended up being counted.
A voter might receive a provisional ballot if a voter's record of registration cannot be found, a voter provides an address different from the voter's registered address, a voter was previously registered in the county but the registration was canceled, an election official is unable to locate a voter's address in the county's street lookup files, a voter's record indicates that the voter has already cast a ballot in the election or a voter requests to vote at a polling place on Election Day that is not the voter's proper precinct.
Those ballots aren't processed until they are inspected, reviewed and opened at an open meeting of the county board of elections.
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State officials have until Nov. 12 to count all of the remaining ballots.
County boards of elections will hold their canvass meeting at 11 a.m. November 13.
For that reason, it is unlikely that a winner in North Carolina will be declared before then.
When Brinson Bell was asked by during a news conference on Wednesday if there would be any movement in the state's numbers before that date, she said "very few exceptions" would make that happen.
WATCH THE NEWS CONFERENCE HERE:
The State Board will meet on November 24 to certify the election.
