Recounts, protests prolong wait for some NC election results

More than a month after Election Day, several North Carolina races continue. Ongoing recounts and consideration of election protests have postponed final determinations in a handful of legislative elections and the contest for a state Supreme Court seat. 

It’s unclear when these races will be resolved, but county boards of election and the North Carolina State Board of Elections are working through each as the new year gets closer. 

Recounts and 2nd recounts

After the official canvass results were announced, state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin and five legislative candidates requested recounts in their races.  

In North Carolina, first recounts are machine recounts. Bipartisan teams re-insert cast ballots into the tabulator for a second scan. Sometimes, the results are slightly different because different tabulators may count partial or stray ballot marks differently, according to the State Board. 

Machine recounts led to minor changes in vote totals but did not change the apparent winner in any of the contests. 

After the first recount, Republicans Ashlee Adams and Stacie McGinn, runner-ups in state Senate districts 18 and 42 contests, respectively, as well as Democrats Lorenza Wilkins and Nicole Sidman, runner-ups in House districts 25 and 105, respectively, did not request second recounts.

However, Republican Frank Sossamon, who is fighting for the state House seat that could determine whether Republicans hold a legislative supermajority, asked for a second partial hand-to-eye recount. 

Second recounts require county elections staff to manually recount a sample of ballots from randomly selected precincts and early voting sites in each impacted county. If the sample recount shows a certain level of discrepancy from the original results, candidates may ask for a full hand-to-eye recount. 

Griffin, a Republican, also requested a second partial hand-to-eye recount, which is ongoing. 

Protests challenge voter eligibility

While recounts are unlikely to impact election results, election protests might. 

Ashlee Adams was three minutes late. At least, that’s what the Wake County Board of Elections determined in its hearing of five election protests in her state Senate district 18 race against Democrat Terence Everitt. After canvassing and a machine recount, Everitt is up by 128 votes. 

Under state law, the deadline to file election protests that involve irregularities other than vote counting or result tabulation is 5 p.m. on the second business day after the county board completes its canvass. This year, that was 5 p.m. on Nov. 19. Adams sent her election protest filings to Wake County at 5:03 p.m. 

The Wake County elections board has referred the case to the North Carolina State Board of Elections instead of considering the protests itself, in line with administrative regulation guidelines.  

Adams’ election protests involve five categories of voters whose ballots she alleges may be invalid. Wake and Granville county boards of elections were charged with three: the ballots of voters who died between the time they cast their votes and Election Day, alleged felon voters and voters who had their voter registration denied after casting their vote. 

While Wake County dismissed her protests altogether, Adams had somewhat better luck in Granville County, where the board of elections validated some parts of her election protests and dismissed others. 

Adams challenged the eligibility of four voters whose voter registration was ultimately denied after failing a mail verification test. When a voter uses same-day voter registration and casts a provisional ballot, county boards send non-forwardable notices to their address on file to verify their residency. 

The Granville county board unanimously found that there was substantial evidence of a violation of election law, irregularity or misconduct involving one of the contested voters, Ja’Lea Taylor. The board referred the case to the State Board, since it was a multicounty race, and could not determine the effect Taylor’s ballot might have on the overall election.  However, the board unanimously determined that there wasn’t enough evidence of election violations involving the other three contested voters. 

The board sided with Adams in her challenge of one deceased voter’s ballot as well. That case was also referred to the State Board. 

While Guilford County did not deal with any legislative races, it addressed contested voters on Griffin’s protest lists. 

The board found that it had already removed many of the challenged voters on the lists during the canvass period. It determined that the remaining voters on the lists were eligible to vote, but may not have appeared to be, due to data entry errors that coded voters incorrectly. One of the challenged deceased voters did not die until Election Day. Some eligible voters appeared on the active felons list because they had the same name as convicted felons, were on active misdemeanor probation or were charged, but not convicted of a felony. 

The State Board has not set a date to hear election protests. In addition to addressing protests referred by county boards and decisions appealed by candidates, the State Board will consider three general categories of election protests that deal with legal matters. 

Two involve overseas and military voters, who are subject to slightly different rules than other North Carolina residents. One protest category challenges the ballots of voters who have never lived in North Carolina, but fall under a special category in state law that allows children of former North Carolina residents to register to vote in the state. Each of the candidates filing election protests argue that this state law violates the state Constitution’s residency requirement for voting, and therefore, those votes should not count. 

The second category includes overseas and military voters who failed to attach photocopies of their IDs or an exception form to their absentee ballots. This was the first year photo ID was implemented in a statewide election in North Carolina. The state election administrative code exempts overseas and military voters from the photocopy requirement, but protesters argue this violates state law. 

“There is no reason to think that the General Assembly intended that bizarre, differential treatment, which would violate the state Constitution’s equal protection clause,” wrote Griffin, Adams and McGinn in their election protest brief with the State Board. 

The third, and largest category, deals with voters who do not have a driver’s license or Social Security number on file. 

This complaint originates from a snafu with voter registration forms uncovered by a North Carolina citizen in October 2023. For a period of time, the voter registration form did not clearly indicate that registrants must provide their driver’s licenses or the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, if they had either. 

If they didn’t have either, they could check a box attesting so. Those voters are still eligible to vote, as long as they present certain accepted forms of documentation with their current name and address the first time they vote, in accordance with the federal Help America Vote Act. 

While the State Board fixed the form, they did not honor the citizen’s request to contact and verify the identities of an estimated 225,000 voters who registered using the unclear form. Election protesters would like them to do so before counting their votes in this election. 

McGinn, Sossamon and Griffin all filed election protests in the same categories. 

Mecklenburg County Elections Director Michael Dickerson said the county Board of Elections unanimously dismissed the protests in the Griffin and McGinn cases involving Mecklenburg County. 

The Vance County Board of Elections determined that four voters challenged by Sossamon were ineligible. The board referred the protests to the State Board since the election involves more than one county, and Vance County alone cannot determine the overall effect the ineligible voters may have had on the election results. The Granville County election board made the same determination in the Sossamon case.

Not all county boards have published their written determination in the Griffin election protest hearings. 

The State Board is waiting for Democrat Allison Riggs, the other candidate in the state supreme court race, to file a reply brief to the election protests before they take action. It is due Friday. 

But before the State Board can address the protests, they must decide whether one of their members is allowed to vote. Griffin requested that Democratic State Board member Siobhan Millen recuse herself from any decision making ability in his protest hearings, since her husband has been involved as a member of Riggs’ legal team. 

Griffin alleges that Millen likely has a personal and financial interest in the results of the protest hearings, and therefore cannot be counted on to be impartial. 

After the State Board makes its decision, candidates may appeal. Judicial candidates may appeal to the North Carolina courts, while legislative candidates appeal to the General Assembly. 

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