Recount Starts for Two Races

BY FLORENCE GILKESON   The Pilot   14 November 2004

Election 2004 isn?t over yet.

The Moore County Board of Elections will reconvene at 8:30 a.m. Monday to oversee the recount of two Council of State offices in which the vote is too close to call.

Glenda Clendenin, director of elections, says the recount will mean that about 3,000 paper ballots must be counted manually and that the board must examine and tally the results on all memory cartridges, memory disks and other equipment used in the Nov. 2 election.

The State Board of Elections notified all county offices by e-mail on Wednesday that recounts would be required for the offices of superintendent of public instruction and secretary of agriculture.

Although the recount will cover only the ballot on which those two races were printed, it is expected that it will take all day to count those votes a second time. It will be necessary to break out the Council of State section on the voting machine ballots and to separate those races from the paper ballots.

Clendenin said Friday that she has already begun ?going down the list? to find people available to help with the count on Monday.

County offices face a Nov. 17 deadline to complete the recount. The State Board is required by law to certify the election by Nov. 23.

Not only did the Nov. 2 election attract the heaviest voter turnout in history, but it will also go down in history as the most expensive. Clendenin estimates that her office is obligated for $32,000 just to cover the special payroll on election day. That figure includes poll workers, additional vote counters needed for the all-day task of counting paper ballots and other expenses attached to the election. It does not include the cost of the regular election office staff, nor does it include the rental fees for six U-Haul trucks needed to transport 120 voting machines and related paraphernalia to polling places. For previous elections, it has taken two U-Haul trucks to handle this task.

Overall, the election of 2004 may end up costing the county more than $40,000.

And yes, it is a county expense. The state does not pick up any of this cost.

The State Board order for a recount had been expected because of the closeness of the statewide totals in both races.

One report shows that Democrat Britt Cobb was losing to Republican Steve Troxler by about 4,000 votes in the agriculture race, and Republican Bill Fletcher was losing to Democrat June Atkinson by about 8,000 for the superintendent?s office.

State law specifies a margin of 4,500 for a statewide vote recount, and both of these races are too close to call. Further complicating the issue is the fact that Mecklenburg County had not completed its canvass by mid-week.

State Director of Elections Gary Bartlett apparently decided that it would be wise to go ahead and authorize the recount before waiting for official results in Mecklenburg County because of the time element. Mecklenburg is the largest county in North Carolina.

On Friday morning, Clendenin was working on strategy for the recount. She plans to set up several tables in the warehouse part of her building, where ballots will be separated for efficiency in counting.

Collecting the vote count from the machines will take some time but it will be considerably less time than is needed for the paper ballots.

Voting on paper ballots were registrants who mailed in absentee ballots, those who voted at curbside and provisional voters. Countywide, there were more than 2,300 paper absentee ballots, a contrast with the 10,044 people who voted the one-stop absentee method during a two-week period prior to the election. One-stop voters used a special machine at the elections office and a manual recount will not be needed.

However, it will take time to separate and count hundreds of paper ballots. Fewer votes were cast for Council of State offices than for such offices as president, governor and school board, but the total is still a big one.

Provisional ballots are those marked by voters whose registration status could not be confirmed at the polling place on election day. In most cases, these are registrants who have moved their residence from one precinct to another and failed to notify the Board of Elections of the move. These voters are required to mark a paper ballot at the elections office in Carthage, regardless of place of residence, and their votes are not counted until later under direct supervision of the county board.

Moore County voters cast 20,872 votes for Bill Fletcher for the superintendent?s office and 14,677 for June Atkinson. Of that number, 385 were provisional ballots and 411 were cast at curbside by individuals unable to walk into the polling place.

The vote for agriculture secretary was similar with 21,244 going to Troxler and 14,666 to Cobb. The curbside and provisional ballots were about the same ratio as those cast in the superintendent?s race.

In addition to the practical details of the recount, the local board was required to notify all four candidates that the recount would take place Monday. This enables the candidates to designate observers for the process. Clendenin said that her office was allowed to make this notification by facsimile.

Despite the hard work, long lines and expense, the election of 2004 went down remarkably well in Moore County.

Clendenin admits that she and her staff were weary indeed by the time the vote count was completed after 6 a.m. the day after the election. Poll workers put in 17 or more hours at some polling places, the ones that stayed open until after 10 p.m. Tuesday just to allow everyone standing in line to vote. The polls officially closed at 7:30, but everyone waiting in line at that hour was allowed to vote.

Prior to election day, the county staff had been working longer hours for the 14 days of one-stop voting.

?Overall, it was a very good election. We received the fewest complaints we?ve ever had,? Clendenin said.

Although a few complaints have been received since election day, Clendenin says she was gratified by the number of calls and notes from voters expressing appreciation for the way they were treated by poll workers.

?We?ve never had so many calls and letters before. I think the public truly did appreciate what we were doing,? Clendenin said.

Most of the complaints centered on the long wait at polling places. More than 73 percent of the county?s registrants went to the polls on Nov. 2.

The state board also called one recount for a state Senate seat, but it was not the Senate District 22 seat serving Moore County, so the county is spared that effort.

One other Council of State race was resolved without a recount late Wednesday when incumbent state Auditor Ralph Campbell conceded the election to Republican Les Merritt. Merritt was leading Campbell, a Democrat, by almost 30,000 votes, which was close but did not really fall within the 0.5 percent margin needed for a recount. The issue in this race was the delay in populous Mecklenburg County.