Protests, appeals and recounts continue to delay NC Supreme Court election results
North Carolina’s next Supreme Court chief justice remains undecided and likely will stay that way until at least Dec. 18.
Incumbent Chief Justice Cheri Beasley, a Democrat, filed 87 protests across the state and contends that thousands of North Carolina votes were wrongly disqualified. It’s unclear how many of Beasley’s protests remain outstanding but she has filed 48 appeals for those that have been dismissed.
Her opponent, Justice Paul Newby, the Republican candidate filed 14 protests and 12 appeals.
Newby likely will succeed Beasley after leading the race with 401 votes following a statewide machine recount that concluded last week. Beasley also demanded a hand-to-eye recount that began Monday and is scheduled to finish Dec. 14.
Beasley protests
Beasley filed protests throughout the state alleging that some county board of elections offices had made errors when reviewing ballots after election law changes went back and forth in federal and state courts after the election had already begun.
Those changes included extending the number of days that ballots would be accepted following the election.
North Carolinians cast nearly 5.4 million ballots this election and saw a 14% increase in the number of people who voted by mail. Election officials expected a large increase in mailed-in ballots due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a settlement agreement that extended the deadline of Nov. 6 to Nov. 12 for boards to accept mailed-in ballots postmarked by Nov. 3.
The settlement agreement also allowed voters without a witness signature on a mailed-in ballot to sign an affidavit that the ballot was legitimate. But that part of the agreement was struck down before reaching the county’s highest court.
By the time the settlement agreement made its way through the entire court system more than 3.4 million people had already cast ballots.
Beasley’s protests contend that some provisional ballots and other mailed-in ballots weren’t counted that should be.
Newby protests
Newby’s protests followed similar complaints to Beasley’s.
He alleged that at least 297 ballots were accepted after Nov. 6, the statutory deadline that was superseded by the judicial rulings.
He also alleges that election officials accepted ballots without postmarks after the Nov. 3 deadline.
Lastly, he alleges that at least 3,309 ballots excluded elements like a witness signature or address that are statutorily required to be counted.
Newby also challenged that voters across the state may have cast ballots but died before Election Day.
Boards of Elections
The N.C. Board of Elections has uploaded 52 orders as of Wednesday morning, from county boards after preliminary hearings and seven orders after evidentiary hearings.
The overall theme of each order is that they denied the protests of both Beasley and Newby.
“This protest is hereby dismissed as frivolous, unsubstantiated and not founded in law or fact, and without probable cause for further proceedings,” Rockingham County’s board wrote in response to one protest filed by Beasley.
Beasley had 39 protests dismissed after preliminary hearings and five dismissed after evidentiary hearings. Newby had five protests dismissed after preliminary hearings.
There are some exceptions. Pasquotank passed the protest over to the state board to determine after realizing one ballot was wrongfully rejected.
In Watauga County, Beasley appealed a provisional ballot that wasn’t counted because the board of elections thought the voter wasn’t registered in their county. She was. The protest was forwarded to the state to handle.
Both parties have a chance to appeal the decisions made by the county boards. Beasley has filed 48 appeals and Newby has filed 12.
The state board of elections plans to hear those appeals on Dec. 18.
Recount
But before the state board tackles the protests, officials had to begin the process of recounting ballots by hand in 3% of precincts in all 100 counties.
Newby led the race for Supreme Court chief justice as election night wrapped up on Nov. 3. But that lead flipped back and forth between the candidates as absentee by-mail ballots continued to come into the county offices and determined the legality of provisional ballots that are used when there is a question about someone’s ability to vote.
It appeared Newby won by 406 votes and Beasley demanded a machine-based recount.
That recount, which ended last Wednesday, dropped the margin to 401 votes between the two candidates with Newby still leading.
Beasley had 24 hours to request a hand-to-eye recount and did so.
The recount began on Monday and though state officials requested the count conclude within seven days, state Board of Elections spokesman Pat Gannon said there is no statutory limit for when the recount needs to conclude.
“That’s just the guidance we gave them,” Gannon said.
The machine recount took a week longer than expected.
Gannon said he expected Guilford County to take longer than the other counties because they have more votes to count.
The precincts were chosen for each county at random last Friday by the state board and Guilford drew multiple one-stop precincts that come with more votes.
Graham also has a large task-at-hand after being the only county in North Carolina to draw absentee ballots as one of the precincts to be recounted.
So far the recount has changed little in the election results.
Gannon said he did not yet have a number on how much the recounts are costing the state. By law, Beasley does not pay for the recount.
State election officials put out guidance for those recounting the votes on what to count and what not to count when examining the ballots. Despite instructions to fill in the bubble of their chosen candidates completely, the guidance showed examples of people who crossed out the candidates they didn’t want, put check marks in the bubbles, wrote “My Man” on the choice candidate and “Anyone but him” on the candidate they didn’t like.
Beasley made history in 2019 after Gov. Roy Cooper appointed her to the position after her predecessor, Mark Martin, retired early. That appointment made Beasley the first African American woman to hold the position.
Currently, Newby is the lone Republican on the bench and the longest-serving member of the Supreme Court. If he does win the race, Newby will be joined by Republicans Phil Berger Jr. and Tamara Barringer on the Supreme Court after the latter two won their elections.
The expiring terms of the N.C. Supreme Court ends on Dec. 31.
This story was originally published December 9, 2020 at 2:50 PM with the headline "Protests, appeals and recounts continue to delay NC Supreme Court election results."