More than 1,600 votes cast in North Carolina's March 5 primary election were thrown out due to issues stemming from the state's newly implemented voter identification requirement or because absentee ballots arrived too late to their local board of elections, according to new data released from the North Carolina Board of Elections.The primary, held two weeks ago, was the first statewide election with two new election laws in effect. One, requiring voters to show an approved form of photo identification in order to cast their ballot, came about thanks to a ruling from the North Carolina Supreme Court. The other moved up the time that absentee ballots were due to the local board of elections. Previously, as long as absentee ballots were postmarked by election day and they arrived within three days after, they were counted. Now, they must arrive by 7:30 p.m. on election night itself.Provisional data from the state shows that 1,185 voters were forced to cast provisional ballots due to the new photo ID requirement. That works out to about one out of every 1,520 votes cast.A majority of those votes were ultimately counted after the voter either filled out an ID Exception Form or went to their local board of elections and presented an acceptable form of ID after initially voting but before the canvass took place.Of the 473 provisional ballots that were not counted, almost all were because the voter did not fill out the appropriate form or present an ID at their board of elections. A few dozen votes were thrown out because their form was not accepted.As for the absentee ballots, in North Carolina's 2020 primary, 800 were marked "returned after deadline." That was back when the deadline was three days after the election, as long as the ballot has an election day postmark. In the 2024 primary, when mail-in ballots were due by election night, 1,128 came back late, which represents a 41 percent increase from the previous presidential primary.That's a total of 1,601 ballots that did not count due to either the photo ID requirement or an absentee ballot coming in too late. It is worth noting we don't know how many of the late absentee ballots would have been on time under the previous rules, which included the three-day grace period.North Carolina's runoff election is May 14, and the general election is Nov. 5.