North Carolina Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) has called for a recount in his District 26 primary contest against Rockingham Sheriff Sam Page, who holds a narrow lead in official county totals.
According to the final canvasses in Rockingham and Guilford counties last week, with 26,249 votes cast in the race, Page has 23 more votes than Berger, a margin of 0.08%. That’s well within the 1% margin in state law for a losing candidate in a non-statewide race to request a recount.
“Based on a review of available records of the SD26 race, there are 1 overvote and 134 undervotes in Rockingham County and 2 overvotes and 83 undervotes in Guilford County, which total more than the 23-vote margin in the Senate District 26 race,” Berger wrote in his request.
“These overvotes and undervotes could very likely determine the outcome of this race,” Berger wrote. “Therefore, I request that, during the initial recount, any ballot that a machine identifies as having an overvote or an undervote be counted by hand by a bipartisan team of four to determine voter choice.”
In a statement responding to Berger’s request, Page said, “We won this election because the voters of Guilford and Rockingham counties made their decision clear. Phil Berger has the right to request a recount, and I’m confident it will confirm the outcome. We won.”
Because the district covers more than one county, the State Board of Elections has jurisdiction over the recount process, but the actual recounts are still conducted at the county level. The state board sent detailed instructions to Guilford and Rockingham counties on March 14.
“Our goal is to provide the counties with the resources they need during any recounts to ensure the process is transparent and orderly,” said Sam Hayes, state board executive director, in a statement.
Page has twice called for state Auditor Dave Boliek, who oversees the state board of elections, to recuse himself from the recount process because Boliek appeared on the campaign trail for Berger. Boliek replied that he has nothing to recuse himself from because he is not involved in the recount process.
Counties must give 48 hours’ public notice before a recount, which is conducted at a public meeting. The first step is a machine recount, in which all the ballots in the recounted race in the county are fed through a tabulator again by bipartisan teams of election workers.
Once the machine recount is completed, the Berger campaign would have 24 hours to request a sample hand-eye recount. In a sample hand-eye recount, the state board randomly selects 3% of the precincts in the contest in each county. Election boards in those counties recount the ballots in the selected precincts by hand, then compare the results to those produced by a machine recount.
If the sample hand-eye recount process produces enough of a discrepancy from the machine recount to affect the outcome of the race when extrapolated across the other precincts, the state board will order a full hand-eye recount.
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