By Mark Wineka
mwineka@salisburypost.com
The Rowan County Board of Elections certified the Nov. 4 general election results Friday morning and sent the numbers to the State Board of Elections.
Part of the local board’s duties Friday included a final canvass and deciding on which provisional ballots to approve and count and which ones to set aside and not count.
Of the 690 provisional ballots cast, the Rowan County Board of Elections approved and counted 322.
Since voting closed Nov. 4, Elections Director Nancy Evans and her staff have been researching, verifying or disqualifying the 690 provisional ballots.
On Election Day, voters whose registration, residence or overall eligibility to vote was in question were allowed to cast provisional ballots at the Board of Elections so that their votes could be counted later if they were determined to be legitimate voters.
“You have to look at each one individually,” Evans said. The process takes a lot of checking and cross-checking, she added. Questions about some voters arose because they had registered with the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles when they obtained or renewed their driver’s licenses, and that had to be verified.
For the provisional votes which were approved, each envelope had to be opened and the ballot fed through the tabulator.
When all votes were counted, the final numbers in Rowan County changed, of course, but the new figures did not change the overall winners or leaders in their races.
In the end, Rowan County voted more people in the 2008 General Election than it has in any previous election.
Of 90,288 registered voters, 61,948 ó 68.6 percent ó cast ballots for the Nov. 4 election.
Of particular interest, 33,187 people voted early at one of five available sites in the county. Add in 3,595 people who voted absentee by mail, and 40.7 percent of Rowan’s registered voters had cast ballots before the polls opened on Election Day.
The Rowan Public Library site in Salisbury proved to be the most popular early-voting site with 9,512 people taking advantage of the location, followed by the Elections Office itself, where 9,022 voted early.
The Bradshaw precinct had the most voters on Election Day with 924; followed in order by West Enochville (878), South Locke (871), Hatters Shop (843), East Kannapolis (821) and Faith (815).
In races of note, here were Rowan County’s final numbers as updated Friday:
– President ó John McCain, 37,451; Barack Obama, 23,391; Bob Barr, 478; and write-in, 240.
– U.S. Senate ó Elizabeth Dole, 32,964; Hagan, 25,790; Christopher Cole, 2,452; and write-in, 28.
– U.S. House, 6th District ó Howard Coble, 21,718; Teresa Sue Bratton, 10,148.
– U.S. House, 12th District ó Mel Watt, 15,137; Ty Cobb Jr., 12,757.
– N.C. Governor ó Pat McCrory, 37,309; Bev Perdue, 22,469; Michael Munger, 1,474.
– N.C. Lt. Governor ó Robert Pittenger, 34,429; Walter Dalton, 23,446; Phillip Rhodes, 1,972.
– N.C. Senate, 34th District ó Andrew Brock, 34,732; William A. Burnette, 23,980.
– N.C. House, 77th District ó Lorene Coates, 20,050; Ada Fisher, 9,942.
– Rowan County Board of Commissioners ó Carl Ford, 29,969; Raymond Coltrain, 28,278; Jim Sides, 27,471; Laura Lyerly, 18,815.
– Soil and Water Conservation supervisor ó Bruce Miller, 36,733; write-in, 451.
– Rowan County Board of Education (3) ó James W. Emerson, 25,672; Eric Trail, 12,683; write-in, 251.
– Rowan County Board of Education (5) ó Bryce Beard, 34,333; write-in, 710.
– Rowan County Board of Education (7) ó Linda Freeze, 35,296; write-in, 421.
Write-in votes have to be accounted for in the final vote totals if an individual received five or more votes.
Of 240 write-in votes for president, Ralph Nader received 22.
Alan King received 10 write-in votes for the No. 5 Board of Education seat, and Ada Fisher received seven votes for the same seat.