Dozens of Provisional Ballots From March Primary Will Be Counted In Forsyth County

The Forsyth County Board of Elections held an emergency meeting Thursday evening. It reviewed the results from the March 15 primary to count more provisional ballots. It's not the only county required by the state to do this.

More than 160 provisional ballots weren't counted after the primary in Forsyth County. That's because most of them lacked voter signatures.

Elections officials blame the problem on an electronic error. Many of the forms that were printed didn't contain a signature line and some poll workers forgot to check the bottom of the ballots.

Forsyth County Elections Director Tim Tsujii says safeguards are now in place to make sure this doesn't happen again.

“We are going to transition back to a more manual process,” says Tsujii. “We'll go ahead and preprint the state board issued form that's already out there. You have to sign it before you even get a ballot and that's how we're going to train our poll workers to handle that.”

Tsujii says 130 provisional ballots have been verified and will be tallied in the official election results.

“We don't think it will impact any races, but we'll officially know more after they're calculated in the system.”

He adds that there's already a new Democratic primary slated for the Winston-Salem City Council's South Ward. The state ordered a new one after some voters received the wrong ballots.

Forsyth isn't alone in the process. The North Carolina State Board of Elections has asked 24 counties to recanvass results from the March primary for various reasons.

*You can follow WFDD's Keri Brown on Twitter @kerib_news.