North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory may be realizing that the election complaints his campaign filed in about half of the state's counties aren’t amounting to diddly squat, since most of them have been dismissed by GOP-led county election boards. Over the weekend, McCrory announced he would drop his push for a statewide recount in exchange for a recount of some 90,000 early ballots cast in Durham County. According to the State Board of Elections, McCrory currently trails Democrat Roy Cooper by about 8,000 votes, a number that has been creeping up steadily as more provisional and absentee ballots have been counted. Caitlin MacNeal writes:
After several county election boards rejected protests alleging voter fraud, the McCrory campaign on Saturday focused on about 94,000 early vote ballots in Durham County that were counted late on election night by hand due to a machine malfunction. The Durham County election board rejected a protest filed by a lawyer for state Republicans, Thomas Stark, ruling that there was not enough evidence of "malfeasance," as Stark had claimed, to warrant a recount.
Stark filed an appeal with the state elections board on Saturday, asking them to approve a recount of the more than 90,000 early vote ballots that were tabulated late on Election Day.
McCrory's campaign manager called it "concerning" that the Durham County Board had not granted Stark's request for a recount. That state Board of Elections held an emergency phone call Sunday to discuss the request but hasn't issued a decision yet. The Cooper campaign expects his lead to reach about 9,000 votes by the time all provisional and absentee ballots have been counted, but the campaign doesn't expect that lead to exceed the 10,000 mark that would prevent McCrory from demanding a statewide recount.
Monday, Nov 28, 2016 · 9:00:11 PM +00:00 · Kerry Eleveld