The State Board of Elections won't make changes to the recount process requested by Senate leader Phil Berger's campaign.
Berger trails Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page by 23 votes and requested a recount Tuesday. A machine recount is underway following the state's normal procedure, but Berger wants election officials to perform a hand-to-eye recount on certain types of ballots.
His campaign says it's identified multiple instances where voters either marked their ballots for more than one candidate or didn't select a candidate in the race, and it wants those ballots inspected individually during the initial recount process.
"By counting the overvotes and undervotes by hand during the first machine recount process, the candidates and the public can have confidence in the accuracy of the vote count in this very close race without the need to conduct a full hand-to-eye recount of all votes cast," Berger wrote in a letter requesting the recount.
The elections board declined to take action on that request at its meeting Wednesday, noting that counties have begun the recount under a process outlined to them days ago. Berger will have the option to request a hand recount of randomly selected ballots after the initial machine recount is finished, but that process won't specifically single out ballots with "overvotes" and "undervotes."
"We're going to let the normal process play itself out and not do anything special," said Siobhan Millen, an elections board member.
Page's campaign praised the decision in a news release and called on Berger to concede the race. "Sen. Berger resorted to asking the board to ignore state law in his attempt to cling to power after losing more than two weeks ago," said Patrick Sebastian, a "post-election advisor" for Page. "That’s not how elections work in North Carolina — and the board made that clear today."
Also at Wednesday's meeting, the elections board rejected a request to require more personal information on the forms voters fill out if they don't have their required photo ID.
That request for a rule change came from Jay DeLancy, who leads a conservative group called the Voter Integrity Project. DeLancy wants people who fill out a "reasonable impediment" form to vote without showing an ID to include their driver's license number and the last four digits of their social security number on the form. The current form requires only a date of birth, which DeLancy argues could make it possible for someone to impersonate a registered voter.
The board voted unanimously to reject the request after a lengthy closed-session discussion. Executive director Sam Hayes said the topic is part of a pending lawsuit.
The board also delayed action on a controversial plan to use a federal database to identify possible noncitizens who are registered to vote.
That plan has drawn thousands of comments from people worried that voters could have their registration improperly revoked because citizenship information in the database could be inaccurate.
