Berger election protests to go under review in key NC Senate race – WRAL

Elections officials on Thursday are scheduled to begin reviewing ballots protested by a top North Carolina lawmaker who is trailing in the primary for this state Senate seat.
Senate leader Phil Berger — who holds immense power over which bills become law in the state — trails Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page by 23 votes out of 26,000 ballots in the race to become the GOP nominee in state Senate District 26, which includes voters in Rockingham and Guilford counties. 
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Berger filed protests over 13 voters in those counties, alleging irregularities over things such as wrong ballots and registration errors. Officials could finish an initial recount and act on Berger’s protests by the end of the day, ending the first phase of what could be a protracted process. 
Guilford officials, who completed their machine recount Wednesday showing no change in the margin, are scheduled to meet again Thursday to consider a Berger complaint — known as an election “protest” — that eight Guilford voters were wrongly given ballots that didn’t include the GOP primary.
Rockingham elections officials are scheduled to begin a machine recount on Thursday and then consider protests Berger filed regarding five voters. In those cases, Berger alleges that:
Russell Collins of Stoneville is one of the three unaffiliated Rockingham County voters whom Berger seeks to disqualify from the GOP primary. Collins told WRAL that he voted for Page in the state Senate contest. 
Berger’s campaign alleges that Rockingham election officials violated state law by allowing Collins to participate in the GOP primary after he had already started paperwork to enter the Democratic primary. 
That shouldn’t matter, Collins told WRAL: “I should be able to vote for who I want to vote for.” 
Collins suggested that election officials erred in giving him the Democratic ballot.
“I wanted a Republican ballot. Somehow, though, I got the Democratic ballot,” he said.
Recount next steps
If the machine recounts don’t change the lead of the race, Berger could still request another “hand-to-eye” recount in which officials take a random sampling of 3% of all the ballots cast, review them, and tabulate any differences in the vote count. A hand-recount of every ballot would only occur if the initial recount results in a significant change in the election results.
Berger has indicated that he’s willing to ask for further recounts if his protests and initial recount request don’t yield the result he desires. 
Recounts and protests rarely change the result of elections. Recounts called for state Supreme Court races in 2020 and 2024 — involving millions of ballots — each led to fewer than 23 votes changing. Legal protests filed in the 2024 race also failed to change the outcome.
That’s why Berger also made a special request of the North Carolina State Board of Elections this week, asking the bipartisan body to examine 220 specific ballots from the district that didn’t record votes in his primary. He wants to know if voters skipped some of the races or if some of their votes weren’t recorded due to an error. 
State elections board members rejected Berger’s request Wednesday, saying they didn’t think they had the legal authority to do what Berger wants, saying they would follow the normal process, the next step of which would be examining the small, random sample.
Page, who has called on Berger to concede, said Berger’s request was an attempt to “cling to power.” Page praised the board’s decision and admonished his procedural request. “That’s not how elections work in North Carolina — and the Board made that clear today,” Patrick Sebastian, a Page spokesman, said in a statement.
Berger’s campaign said it was disappointed by the board’s decision. “Our request was very simple: save everyone the time and go ahead and determine voter intent where possible,” said Jonathan Felts, a Berger spokesman. 
Felts added: “Today’s ruling leaves little recourse for every legal vote being counted other than to seek a hand recount.”
Berger can request a hand recount once election officials in Guilford and Rockingham counties complete their machine recounts, but there’s no guarantee all of the 220 ballots will be examined. 
WRAL reporters Will Doran and Caroline Yaffa contributed.

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