A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT to require that in canvassing votes after elections, county boards of elections use the same time frame for all elections.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1.  G.S. 163‑182.5(b) reads as rewritten:
"(b)	Canvassing by County Board of Elections. – The county board of elections shall meet at 11:00 A.M. on the tenth day after every election to complete the canvass of votes cast and to authenticate the count in every ballot item in the county by determining that the votes have been counted and tabulated correctly. If, despite due diligence by election officials, the initial counting of all the votes has not been completed by that time, the county board may hold the canvass meeting a reasonable time thereafter. The canvass meeting shall be at the county board of elections office, unless the county board, by unanimous vote of all its members, designates another site within the county. The county board shall examine the returns from precincts, from absentee official ballots, from the sample hand‑to‑eye paper ballot counts, and from provisional official ballots and shall conduct the canvass."
SECTION 2.  This act becomes effective January 1, 2017, and applies to elections held on or after that date.