Democratic NC lawmaker claims election irregularities marred results, in narrow primary loss
Election irregularities are being alleged in northeastern North Carolina, where a Democratic incumbent in the state House of Representatives appeared to lose in the Democratic primary to a more progressive challenger.
Rep. Michael Wray, D-Northampton, filed an election protest Friday. Unofficial results showed that Wray — who has served 20 years in the legislature and is one of the General Assembly’s last remaining socially conservative Democrats — lost by only 41 votes to Rodney Pierce, a local middle school history teacher.
Progressive activists targeted several moderate Democrats in the primaries in addition to Wray, unseating Durham Sen. Mike Woodard and nearly defeating High Point Rep. Cecil Brockman. Brockman and Wray's campaigns had both been helped by mailers touting their voting records — mailers that were funded by a "dark money" political group with secret donors, but ties to Republican leadership.
The Wray-Pierce race is for House District 27, which represents Warren, Halifax and Northampton counties northeast of Raleigh. No Republican filed to run for the majority-Black district, which leans heavily to the left, so whoever wins the primary is all-but guaranteed victory in November.
Pierce told WRAL in a statement Friday that Wray should drop his challenges and concede defeat.
“On Tuesday, the people of House District 27 turned out and chose me to represent them," he wrote. "Now, my opponent seems to want to change the rules more than a week after the contest ended, just because he lost. That is not how our elections and our democracy are supposed to work. In a time of a crisis of faith in our institutions, spreading conspiracy theories about our election process is wrong and it has real consequences."
Wray said he’s not asking for any votes to be thrown out — just that he wants to make sure everyone who wanted to vote was able to. It is possible to use election protests to call for a new election to be held, although Wray’s protest isn’t calling for that at this point.
“We are simply asking the county boards to ensure that they did not improperly reject any ballots,” Wray wrote. “Our campaign has never asked for rules to be changed and we are following the procedure set forth in North Carolina law. We simply want to ensure that all valid ballots are counted.”
Elections officials in Warren and Halifax counties said they'll meet Tuesday to discuss Wray's claims; officials in Northampton County will meet Monday.
Irregularities alleged
Wray’s protests claim that multiple voters were given the wrong ballots when they went to the polls, and that at least one woman says she inserted her ballot into the voting machine but that the number displayed never changed, indicating her ballot wasn’t actually counted.
And other voters, he said, showed up to vote but were turned away — after being told that their names had been taken off the list of registered voters.
All those voters were therefore unable to cast a ballot for their preferred candidates, Wray claims. That could cast doubt on the results of such a close race, which Pierce appears to have won with 50.1% of the vote, according to the unofficial results reported after the March 5 primary.
Wray also claims that in at least one voting precinct, a poll worker on site was also passing out fliers urging people to vote for Pierce. That’s an illegal act of electioneering, Wray’s challenge claims, adding that it appears to have worked because Wray performed poorly at that specific precinct.
Local elections officials must now convene to look into Wray’s claims and determine the next steps to take. State law dictates that since Wray filed protests raising issues with the vote in all three counties in the district, those counties' election boards will each take up his claims separately.
If one or more of the county elections boards determines the results of the race could be in question, then the State Board of Elections could be called on to decide what to do. State board officials confirmed the existence of the protests Friday.
