Senate leader Phil Berger is calling for a second recount in his close Republican primary race with Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page.
A machine recount wrapped up Thursday without changing Page's 23-vote lead. But state law allows Berger to seek a hand-to-eye recount of randomly selected ballots, a process that would likely begin next week.
He's also asking for a full recount of all votes in the race or a recount of ballots considered "overvotes" or "undervotes," where the ballot readers determined the voter either didn't make a selection in the race or marked the names of both candidates.
His campaign says that request stems from discrepancies in how Rockingham and Guilford county election officials handled the initial recount. Rockingham officials added two ballots based on a visual review of ballot markings like check marks that the machine didn't register, while Guilford decided not to count two votes where the machine deemed the markings to be unreadable during the recount.
"In such a close election, we must be certain that every lawful vote is counted," Berger wrote in a letter Friday to the State Board of Elections. "The machines did not count 222 ballots that were labeled as overvotes or undervotes. Those uncounted ballots, which could include discernible votes for candidates, are nearly ten times the margin in this contest. If the machines have misread just a fraction of those ballots, then the current results of the election could be incorrect."
But Page's campaign said an immediate full recount would violate state law, which typically allows for a full hand-to-eye recount if the hand-to-eye recount of randomly selected ballots yields differing results.
"Phil Berger is once again asking for special treatment and trying to change the rules after he lost," Page spokesman Patrick Sebastian said in a news release. "North Carolina law is clear — and it applies to everyone. Sen. Berger doesn’t get to rewrite it because he doesn’t like the outcome."
Berger argues the State Board of Elections has the legal authority to tweak the process. "The State Board of Elections has the discretion to order recounts 'when necessary to complete the canvass in an election,'" he wrote in the letter. "This discretion includes the power to order a hand-to-eye recount in a contest."
Friday's wrangling over the recount process could further delay a final outcome in the race. A loss for Berger would significantly change the power dynamics in the state legislature, where Berger has held the leadership role since 2011.
In addition to the recount process, Berger's campaign has filed challenges in both counties that affect about a dozen votes. In Guilford, the elections board has scheduled an April 6 hearing on concerns that some voters may have received an incorrect ballot that prevented them from voting in the race. And in Rockingham, Berger's campaign is challenging unaffiliated voters who he says initially requested a Democratic ballot and then improperly switched to voting a Republican ballot.
