The North Carolina State Board of Elections voted unanimously today to extend voting by one hour — to 8:30 p.m. — at Halifax County’s Littleton precinct which is Littleton United Methodist Church, at 105 E. South Main Street.

The voting site for this precinct was delayed in opening on election day morning due to a synchronization issue with electronic poll books, and backup procedures were not immediately employed.

With more than 2,600 polling sites statewide, it is not unusual for minor issues to occur at polling sites that result in brief disruptions of voting, the state board said.

State law authorizes the state board to extend voting hours at sites where voting is interrupted for at least 15 minutes, but the board may extend voting for an amount of time no longer than the disruption and only for the affected sites. All votes cast after 7:30 p.m. in these two precincts will be provisional votes, per state law.

Election officials cannot release results while voting is underway in many contests.  The state board will not publish any unofficial results statewide until all polls are closed.