If you report it before it happens, does it still count as news.

Some media outlets reported on Wednesday, Oct. 28 that the Supreme Court had made the final decision on extending deadline for absentee ballots in North Carolina to Nov. 12.

North Carolina state law sets the deadline as three days after the election, which this year would be Nov. 6. However, the North Carolina State Board of Elections entered into a secret agreement to settle a lawsuit that extended the deadline to Nov. 12 and a series of lawsuits followed.

Wednesday, Oct. 28, the US Supreme Court did make the final decision by a 5-3 vote in the case, upholding the agreement and overruling state law.

But when it was reported by some media outlets, the decision had only been made on the first of the two cases before the Supreme Court.

So the decision on the first case, which was also 5-3, didn’t actually extend the deadline to Nov. 12 because there was another case pending.

What some news outlets reported on Wednesday, that the deadline for votes mailed by Nov. 3 to reach the local Board of Election office is Nov. 12, is true now. But it wasn’t true when it was reported because the Supreme Court hadn’t made the decision on the second case, yet.

Finally, five days before Election ,Day it appears the voters in North Carolina know what the rules are on what votes are going to count.

After the first decision was announced President Pro Tem of the state Senate Sen. Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) sent out a press release noting that this was only the first decision and the second case was still pending.

After the second decision by the Supreme Court to allow the extended deadline Berger in a press release stated, “We’re disappointed that, in this instance, the Court majority appears to agree that the legislature’s authority to determine the time, place, and manner of elections is subject to being set aside by a partisan panel of unelected bureaucrats.”