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A veteran North Carolina legislator filed protests Friday in his primary election during which he barely trails, alleging that poll distribution and counting errors together with illegal voting-site campaigning forged doubt on the outcomes.
Democratic Rep. Michael Wray, who joined the state House in 2005, filed the protests with elections boards in Halifax, Northampton and Warren counties, that are northeast of Raleigh and compose the twenty seventh House District.
As of Friday afternoon, Rodney Pierce, a Halifax County instructor, led Wray by 35 votes from near 12,000 ballots forged in final week’s primary. The winner faces no Republican opposition within the fall.
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Wray has been criticized by outdoors teams and different Democrats for aligning himself at occasions with leaders within the Republican-controlled House, the place he is been made one of many senior chairmen of the highly effective finance committee.
Pierce referred to as on Wray to concede, saying he “seems to want to change the rules more than a week after the contest ended, just because he lost.” And a number of teams favoring Pierce’s election put out information releases calling the accusations “bogus” and “dirty tricks.”
Wray challenges what occurred with greater than a dozen voters, a number of of whom obtained a poll for the flawed primary, the protests say. He additionally alleges {that a} Democratic ballot observer at a Halifax County precinct instructed voters to decide on Pierce, violating legal guidelines towards electioneering and coercion.
“We are not challenging any votes that were cast and counted. We are simply asking the county boards to ensure that they did not improperly reject any ballots,” Wray mentioned in a information launch. “We simply want to ensure that all valid ballots are counted.”
The boards in every county throughout the twenty seventh District will meet to find out whether or not to dismiss every protest or name for a listening to during which proof is obtained. The Warren and Halifax boards deliberate conferences for Tuesday to contemplate Wray’s protest.
The present vote margin between Pierce and Wray additionally would permit Wray to hunt a recount — a call that Wray mentioned Friday would wait till race outcomes are licensed.
The protests have been filed on the identical day elections board in all 100 counties have been scheduled to finish the ultimate tabulations of poll selections from the March 5 primaries. The Warren board delayed the completion of its canvass given the protest, elections director Debbie Formyduval mentioned.
Leading as much as Friday’s canvass, the county board examined particulars associated to greater than 11,000 provisional absentee or in-person ballots to find out whether or not they can be added to the preliminary counts. The State Board of Elections canvass is March 26.
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Separate from Wray’s potential defeat, three different General Assembly incumbents misplaced their primary elections: Democratic Sen. Mike Woodard of Durham County and Republican Reps. George Cleveland of Onslow County and Kevin Crutchfield of Cabarrus County.
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