Election Day 2024 results: Polls are opening across North Carolina as lines of Trump and Harris supporters form, ready to cast their votes

A polling place in Wilson County will remain open for another 30 minutes on Tuesday.

The NC Board of Elections agreed to extend the hours of operation at the Gardners School polling location Tuesday morning due to printing issues.

The polling station opened at 6:30 a.m. as scheduled, but when the first voter arrived at 6:40 a.m., workers discovered they couldn’t print out authorization forms. This problem persisted until 8:07 am. Until then, no voters could vote in this district.

Workers said they turned away 10 voters between 6:40 a.m. and 8:07 a.m. However, four of them later returned to vote. It’s unclear how many other voters at the polling station learned of the problem and changed their plans.

The NC Board of Elections held an emergency meeting Tuesday afternoon to discuss extending voting hours in this precinct due to the pressure issue. The board is authorized to vote on an extension of election times in individual cases.

Board members discussed the issue, with some pointing out that the issue appeared to affect only a few voters, but all agreed that they wanted to avoid the possibility of disenfranchising voters. They therefore voted unanimously to extend the station’s opening hours by 30 minutes.

Because of this, no precinct in Wilson County can announce results before 8 p.m. This is a new policy from the NC Board of Elections. Previously, all counties in the state had to delay their reporting until all polls closed. The board changed that policy in 2022 to only affect the county where a district remained open.