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Buncombe County election officials approve absentee abstract, report high turnout and move tabulation to warehouse
Summary
The Buncombe County Board of Elections approved the absentee voting abstract by voice vote (5-0), reported strong election-day turnout and 151,263 ballots from 80 precincts so far, and recessed to the Election Services Warehouse to continue tabulation and uploads.
The Buncombe County Board of Elections approved the absentee voting abstract the board had reviewed and signed, the board chair announced after a motion that passed by voice with a 5-0 tally. The board completed its review of absentee abstracts and confirmed the reports would be notarized and posted only after the legally required posting time.
Director Colleen Duncan and staff walked the board through the day’s turnout figures from polling locations, noting that the counts reported during the day were not final results but the number of voters who had cast ballots at precincts: at 10:00 a.m. there were 11,157 voters (versus 6,380 in 2020), at 2:00 p.m. 21,154 (vs. 12,498 in 2020), and at 4:00 p.m. 25,412 (vs. 15,101 in 2020). Staff also reported early voting turnout of about 116,000 voters that will be included in later reporting.
Later in the evening Director Duncan reported that 80 precincts had uploaded results to the state system and staff had recorded 151,263 ballots cast so far; she cautioned that one early-vote upload (an UNCA early-vote batch) was still pending and that these numbers reflect uploads rather than certified final results. The board noted those uploads were being processed through an air-gapped, offline machine, then uploaded to the state board’s data system in keeping with the board’s posted procedures.
A board member observed that a law change earlier this year requires county boards to wait until polls close at 7:30 p.m. before beginning early-vote tabulation; staff described how the absentee abstracts had been compared against computer-generated reports and would be notarized and posted at the required time. Bria and the technical team explained they were reading flash drives into an air-gapped machine and preparing handwritten abstracts for board review.
After completing the absentee review the board recessed the meeting at 9:25 p.m. and agreed to reconvene at 9:45 p.m. at the Election Services Warehouse, 50 Cox Avenue, to continue tabulation and warehouse processes.
What happens next: staff will complete the remaining uploads and the board will continue to monitor precinct flash-drive imports and post certified abstracts following the county’s notarization and posting steps.
