Polls close at 7:30 pm on November 5. Any voter who is in line at that time will be able to vote, so voting may continue hours after 7:30 at certain polling locations.

A new North Carolina law makes it illegal to count early votes in person before polls close Tuesday. However, absentee ballots received by mail before Election Day can be tabulated.

That means the first election results reported by counties to the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBOE) will likely be absentee votes by mail. NCSBOE estimates there will be a 30 to 60 minute delay in sending in-person early voting results to the state.

By the end of the night, NCSBOE estimates that 98 percent of all votes cast will be publicly reported. The remaining ballots will be tabulated during the next 10-day counting period. This is the period in which the following types of ballots will be counted and added to the total:

• Absentee ballots received on Election Day.
• Provisional ballots cast in advance or on election day.
• Certain absentee ballots returned by voters in the 25 counties affected by Hurricane Helene.
• Absentee ballots for military and foreign nationals arriving by mail at county board of elections offices from Election Day until 5 pm on November 14.

Remember, all election results on or in the days immediately following Election Day are unofficial. In the days after the election, bipartisan election officials in all 100 counties will audit all results during the counting period.

County boards will certify election results on Nov. 15. The state board will certify final results on Nov. 26.

More details on how North Carolina counts votes and reports results.