General Counsel Manual

• Conduct elections in North Carolina. The North Carolina State Board of Elections is an independent agency that conducts elections.
• Decide how the elector nominees are selected by the political parties or the qualified unaffiliated candidates State law has some general requirements related to that.
• Tell the electors who to vote for or control how the electors vote.

For more details, visit Secretary of State and the Electoral College (sosnc.gov).

How the Process Works in North Carolina

NC State Board of Elections conducts elections in North Carolina by following NC law to determine which parties and candidates have qualified to be on the ballot, including for President and Vice President.

U.S. Constitution and NC law set out the requirements for the number of electors and for how the political parties choose their elector candidates.

When you vote for a candidate for President and Vice President, you’re actually voting for the nominees for electors for those candidates. State law says that electors’ names do not appear on the ballot. In other words, when you vote for a President/VP, you’re actually voting for an elector in your state that represents the vote for that candidate or party.

The process is as follows:

• Political parties file the names of their nominees for electors for their candidates for President and Vice President with the NC Secretary of State. If unaffiliated candidates qualify to have their names on the printed ballots as an unaffiliated candidate, then they also have to file the names of their nominees for electors with the Secretary of State.
• After the general election, the North Carolina State Board of Elections certifies the election results and delivers them to the Secretary of State.
• The Secretary of State has to notify the Governor as to who has been elected to the office of elector for President and Vice President of the United States.
• After the Secretary of State certifies the election results to the Governor, the Governor issues a proclamation. The proclamation names the electors. The law also instructs the electors to be present “in the old Hall of the House of Representatives in the State Capitol in Raleigh at noon on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December following their election.”
• The Electoral College meets and the electors vote separately for President and Vice President of the United States.