The Michael H. Wray for State House Committee filed protests in all three of the District 27 counties which urged each of the boards of election to take a closer look at several ballots that were rejected.

“If those denials were wrongful, voters were denied their rights to cast ballots,” a statement on the matter said. “North Carolina law provides for such a review to make sure that all valid ballots are counted. Until that process is completed, it would be premature for either candidate to talk about a recount.”

The Halifax County Board of Elections, after consulting with the state board, did certify the results of the March 5 primary in which Wray, the incumbent, lost to challenger Rodney D. Pierce, a Northampton County middle school teacher, by a 41-vote margin.

(The Halifax County Board of Elections will consider the protest at 1 p.m. Tuesday. The location has not been determined)

Wray won his home county of Northampton and also won in Warren County while Pierce won in his home county of Halifax. 

“We appreciate the county boards of elections looking at the questions we have raised,” Wray said. “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. 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.”  

Halifax County

Wray’s protest in Halifax County alleges a defect in the manner in which votes were counted or results tabulated that were sufficient to cast doubt on the apparent results of the election as well as a violation of election law, irregularity, or misconduct sufficient to cast doubt on the apparent results of the election.

As it stands now Wray is only asking that any irregularities in Halifax County be investigated.

Wray contends that three voters were provided incorrect ballots — three registered Democrats who were given Republican ballots.

One provisional ballot is related to a voter who voted in a precinct other than their proper precinct which the Wray committee contends should be counted.

Another provisional ballot relates to a voter who maintained continuous residence in the county since registering to vote, even though they were removed from the voter rolls but attested to maintaining continuous residence.

Another voter was required to submit a provisional ballot because the polling place could not locate their record due to a misspelling while one voter attempted to do same-day registration but could not provide proper identification.

Board of Elections Supervisor Kristin Scott said in a meeting before the canvas that none of the five voters who didn’t have ID came to the office to offer proof. The board rejected those five provisionals.

Meanwhile the committee said a person registered as a poll observer for the Halifax County Democratic Party in the Ringwood precinct was actively campaigning by handing out sample ballots which instructed voters to cast their votes for Pierce. “We believe this had an impact on the results as Michael Wray only received 20 votes in this precinct. The Halifax County Board of Elections also provided the following instructions to all poll observers: Observers are not to impede, intimidate, or disrupt the voting process. Observers are also not allowed to go behind the check-in, ballot, and help tables.Observers are not to go directly up to the voting machines or go to the voting booths. Chief Judges can have an observer removed with the approval of the local board of elections.”

This activity was observed by four people, the protest says.

Northampton County

A voter in Severn only had their ballot partially counted because they were provided and voted the incorrect ballot style. The person has voted in the Democratic Primary in each of the past six elections. “She should be allowed to cast a full Democratic ballot.”

Warren County

In Warren County three voters were handed incorrect ballots that did not match their party affiliation, the Wray committee contends.

One person who contended they were a Warren County voter was actually registered in Franklin County.

A person registered to vote in the county attempted to vote in-person on February 15, completed their ballot, and inserted it into the machine to be counted. “However, upon doing this, she observed that the machine's display of the number of ballots counted did not change. She reported this to a poll worker at the time. According to available state elections data, her early vote was not received. A machine error is not a reason for a ballot not to be counted. The ballot … must be located and counted.”

Additionally, some ballots may have been mistakenly misidentified, the protest says. 

At the Warren County Board of Elections meeting on Tuesday, “It seemed to an observer that one or more rejected envelope containers for provisional ballots were accidentally opened by a member of the board of elections and then passed towards another member who was making a stack of ballots to be fed into a tabulator. A person at the meeting made a remark about someone being ‘letter­ opener happy.’ While the observer believes that this did not cause any tabulation error, under these circumstances, confirmation that all envelope containers and ballots presented during the audit were properly identified, sorted, and handled is requested.”