How North Carolina conducts ballot recounts

Several North Carolina primary elections are expected to go to recounts, including one in a closely watched legislative race. 

Senate leader Phil Berger trails his GOP primary challenger, Rockingham Sheriff Sam Page, by 23 votes out of more than 26,000 votes. That means Berger is eligible to request a recount. 

Here’s an explainer on the recount process from state elections officials: 

When’s the deadline? For contests overseen by county boards of elections, a recount request must be made in writing to the county board by 5 p.m. Monday, March 16. In contests under the jurisdiction of the State Board of Elections — including multicounty state legislative districts such as the Berger-Page race, the recount request must be in writing and received by the State Board by noon on Tuesday.

Who conducts the recount? Any necessary ballot recounts from the 2026 primary election would be conducted by county boards of elections. In Senate District 26, the Berger-Page race,  that means officials in Guilford and Rockingham counties would tabulate ballots again. 

What about transparency? Recounts are open to the public and paid for by the county boards of elections. You can find details about recount requests at the State Board of Elections website. County boards must provide public notice at least 48 hours before the start of any recount. The use of video or still cameras by the public is not typically allowed during recounts because of state laws prohibiting the photographing or videotaping of individual voted ballots.

Who can request a recount? Candidates who are trailing by thin margins after the county canvass may request a recount. The margins differ by the kind of race. 

• Statewide candidates must be trailing by half of a percentage point or 10,000 votes, whichever is less to be eligible to request a recount.
• For non-statewide races, such as the Berger-Page race, the candidate must be trailing by 1 percentage point or less of the total votes cast in the contest.

Kinds of recounts

First recounts: In an initial recount, county elections boards would feed all ballots cast in the relevant contest through a tabulator. To ensure integrity and fairness, state elections officials say, county boards use two-person, bipartisan teams for the processes involved. If any ballots are rejected by the machines during the recount, they are required to be recounted by hand by a four-person, bipartisan team. A quorum of county board members, with at least one Republican and one Democratic board member, must be present to make determinations about voter intent when in question on a ballot. 

Hand recount: After the machine recount, the trailing candidate has 24 hours to request a hand recount in a sample of 3% of precincts and early voting sites, or a combination of both, in that contest, according to the state elections board. The sample would be drawn at random by state elections board staff for contests in the state board’s jurisdiction, officials said. If a hand-to-eye recount is necessary, it would begin within two business days of the request. The sample hand-to-eye recount is designed to determine whether there are sufficient discrepancies from the machine recount to require a full hand-to-eye recount of all ballots cast in the contest.

Full hand recount: If the results of the sample hand-to-eye recount differ from the machine recount suggest that a bigger sample might result in reversing the result, the state elections board would order a full hand-to-eye recount of all ballots in that contest.

Election protests: Results of an election may be called into question by voters or candidates through a formal complaint alleging that violations of election law, irregularities or misconduct affected the results. If successful, a protest could lead to corrected results, a recount or a do-over election. Protests must be filed by 5 p.m. on Tuesday. Protests can be found here.