New developments in ballot-counting

Update #1 (via AP):

North Carolina's election chief says he wouldn't be surprised to see Barack Obama's slim lead in the state increase as counties count thousands of provisional ballots.

State Board of Elections director Gary Bartlett estimated Wednesday there are about 40,000 provisional ballots, cast by voters whose eligibility to vote must be confirmed.

He said history suggests that about 65 percent of those ballots will be eligible and they are likely to break toward the winner in numbers similar to that of Election Day.

Unofficial election results show Obama with 12,106 votes more than Republican rival John McCain. Obama has already won the race to the White House, even without North Carolina's final results.

Update #2 (also via AP):

Republican-leaning Rockingham County still has 18,000 votes to count after a glitch at five one-stop polling sites left the results out of the county's total.

Rockingham County election officials said Wednesday they hoped to finish counting and reporting the remaining ballots by 5 p.m.

Returns from all Election Day precincts, mail voting and a one-stop site in Reidsville show that some 22,488 ballots have been counted. The early numbers there favored Republican presidential hopeful John McCain by a margin of 5,412.

Translation: It doesn't look like we'll be any closer to an answer anytime soon.