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

The Forsyth County Board of Elections will add 130 provisional ballots to the March primary results. The ballots didn't have voter signatures. KERI BROWN/WFDD

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.

Keri Brown is a multi-award winning reporter and host at 88.5 WFDD. She has been honored with two regional Edward R. Murrow awards for her stories about coal ash, and was named the 2015 radio reporter of the year by the Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas (RTDNAC).Although she covers a variety of topics, her beats are environmental and education reporting.Keri comes to the Triad from West Virginia Public Broadcasting, where she served as the Chief Bureau Reporter for the Northern Panhandle. She produced stories for the state's Public Television and Radio programs and was honored by the West Virginia Associated Press Broadcasters Association for her feature and enterprise reporting.She also served as an adjunct instructor at Wheeling Jesuit University and Bethany College in West Virginia. She worked with the Center for Educational Technologies in Wheeling, WV, and other NASA centers across the country to develop several stories about the use of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) concepts in the classroom.Keri's journalism career began at WTRF-TV 7 in Wheeling. She worked in several roles at the station, including the head assignment editor. She also was a field producer and assignment manager at WPGH-TV Fox 53 in Pittsburgh.Keri is a graduate of Ohio University. When she's not in the studio or working on a story, she enjoys watching college football with her family, cooking, and traveling.Keri is always looking for another great story idea, so please share them with her. You can follow her on Twitter @kerib_news.

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