Elections
Fix to vote count flips NC Supreme Court chief justice race again
State Supreme Court Justice Paul Newby has pulled ahead of incumbent Chief Justice Cheri Beasley after officials in Eastern North Carolina’s Washington County fixed a problem with election results Monday morning.
It’s the latest shift in the race for Supreme Court chief justice. And there could be more. In addition to Washington County counting mailed-in ballots twice, Robeson County forgot to count ballots from an early voting site.
Counties won’t finish their canvassing before Tuesday afternoon. The Rockingham County Board of Elections announced it rescheduled its meeting from Monday to 3 p.m. Tuesday.
Robeson’s board was still meeting at 7:30 p.m. Monday but uploaded unofficial results to the state board of elections website.
At 7:30 p.m., Newby, a Republican, led the race by 342 votes.
Lead goes back and forth
Politics and courts aficionados followed the Beasley-Newby race closely Friday as the two flip-flopped their leads back and forth throughout the afternoon. At one point, only five votes separated the two justices.
As the deadline for counties to certify their votes passed Friday, Beasley led Newby by 35 votes, but not all counties had finished reporting.
Beasley’s campaign manager Benjamin Woods sent a statement late Friday night saying, “Chief Justice Beasley is honored and grateful for the trust voters across North Carolina have placed in her. While there is likely a longer process ahead of us, one that requires patience and faith in our election process, we are confident Chief Justice Beasley will remain the Chief Justice of North Carolina Supreme Court in January.”
The North Carolina Republican Party already announced that it will ask for a recount if Newby loses and is within range for a recount. So far neither candidate has pulled far enough ahead to be out of that range.
Beasley, a Democrat, became chief justice in 2019 after the retirement of her predecessor, Mark Martin. Appointed by Gov. Roy Cooper, Beasley is the first African American woman to hold that title in North Carolina.
She had served on the Supreme Court since her appointment by former Gov. Bev Perdue in 2012. Her judicial career began in 1999. She served as a public defender before then.
Newby began serving on the Supreme Court in 2004. He is the most senior member of the court and has close to 40 years of legal experience.
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