Washington Bureau

NC Prez Race Outcome Still Not Certain

In the larger scheme of things, it hardly matters which presidential candidate won North Carolina, which is still too close to call this afternoon. The race is over. Barack Obama was declared the winner and John McCain conceded long before all the votes in North Carolina came in.

Still, the uncertainty has to feel somewhat unsatisfying for voters in the state, who endured long lines and two months of TV ads and robo-calls. And for political junkies, it's hard to start the debate about whether Republicans can turn the state red again in 2012 or Democrats can make another run at turning it blue without knowing its color this year.

With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Obama leads by .27 percent or 11,690 votes out of 4.2 million cast. For those keeping score at home, it's Obama 2,110,285 to McCain 2,098,595.

While that would seem to give Obama the win, there are more votes to be counted.

Based on past estimates, an expected 40,000 provisional ballots were cast this year, Gary Bartlett, Executive Director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said in an interview today. History suggests that about 65 percent of those provisional ballots end up counting -- the rest are thrown out -- meaning there are probably 26,000 votes or so left to include in the tally.

Historically, provisional ballots usually break along the same lines as the election as a whole -- with a slight trend towards the winner -- suggesting Obama will probably pull it out, he said. But we probably won't know for sure for a little while.

--Sean Mussenden
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