State elections officials met Tuesday to decide the fate of these two races in which neither side has conceded to the other despite the unofficial tally. The State Superintendent's race was decided relatively easy with the State Elections Board certifying June Atkinson the winner with an approximately 9,000 vote lead. However Fletcher has refused to concede and has already filed lawsuits. The Agriculture race is more complicated, in that the margin separating the two candidates is around 2,300 votes. The problem with that race is obvious, the 4,500 votes 'lost' in Carteret County could have decided that race in someone's favor.

What happened in Carteret County was an ironic twist to a new phenomenon occuring in many states across the US. North Carolina is among a growing list of states that has set up early voting programs to encourage voter participation. For two weeks prior to Election Day, you can vote at numerous centralized polling places of which there are at least one in each county in the state. This 'No Excuses' early voting program has grown rapidly in popularity that in some counties over 1/3 of the overall votes cast were early. The problem in Carteret County was with two voting machines used during this early voting period. What happened was that due to a software glitch, when those two machines reached the point when 3,000 votes were cast, it recorded no more. When early voting was concluded, nearly 4,500 people who had used those machines, their votes were not recorded. What is ironic is that elections officials know whose votes were lost. So the question became who should revote? The 4,500 people who were disenfranchised, the entire county, or the entire state as stipulated by state law. The first initial plan adopted by compromise by the committe would set up a revote on January 11, 2005 in Carteret County only. The 4,500 disenfranchised voters would be allowed to revote plus everyone else in the county who did not vote before. Neither side is satisfied with that compromise especially the provision allowing non-participants to participate. Most Democrats favor a statewide revote, while state law seems to mandate such a revote based on the statues, it is believed that the Democratic candidate would fare better in a statewide revote as there are about 20% more Democrats statewide than Republicans.

Another controversy surrounding Election 2004 is the use of provisional ballots. Although lawsuits challenging their use have already been decided against the plaintiffs, they have had some pretty dramatic effects. In one county, Mecklenburg, the state's largest containing Charlotte, provisional ballot counting caused a two-week fracas that featured the media, several court cases, which once they were counted turned the county from a 5-4 Republican majority to a 6-3 Democratic majority on the Board of County Commissioners. Provisional ballots were instituted as part of the 2002 HAVA (Help America Vote Act) legislation that allowed people who showed up to vote at a polling place, but where not included on the rolls, to cast a 'provisional ballot' that would be verified later. It was though, and has proven to be true, that most of the provisional ballot users were people who had moved and failed to update their voter registration information, voters that went to the wrong precinct, and people whose names changed. For statewide or countywide races, provisionals had little controversy since the votes were counted collectively, but in many local races votes had to be separated by elections officials, a tedious and time-consuming process. Provisional ballots have favored Democrats in most races. In the Agriculture race, it was the provisional ballots that closed the gap in the race to less than the 4,500 vote margin from Carteret County, triggering the revote.

Conventional wisdom seems to think that a revote in Carteret County in some form or another will be the most likely outcome. While state law seems to dictate the need for a statewide revote, many observers think that due to the costly and impractical consequences, that it will not happen. As similar to 2000 in the Federal race, it is almost a certainty that the NC Supreme Court will get involved in the election dispute and issue a ruling sometime before Christmas. Revotes are very rare, especially in a large juridication like a state. The last significant revote was held on Sept. 16, 1975 in New Hampshire between John Durkin-D, and Louis Wyman-R statewide for a US Senate seat. Durkin won that race and served until his defeat in the 1980 elections.