By Catharin Shepard •
Staff writer •
The Hoke County Board of Elections canvass held Friday confirmed the unofficial local election results from November 3, but the board is preparing for a recount in one statewide race.
Nothing essentially changed with the outcome of the local races following the canvass, Hoke Elections Director Towanna Jackson said. Incumbent Commission Chairman James Leach, and Commissioner-elect Lonnie Baldwin will serve four-year terms on the Hoke County Board of Commissioners; and incumbent school board member Rosa McAllister-McRae, and member-elect Keisha Gill will serve four-year terms on the Hoke County Board of Education.
One candidate who was considering possibly calling for a recount in the Board of Commissioners race, did not seek a recount before the canvass. In the end, the situation did not qualify for a recount, Jackson said.
The canvass did turn up one issue: the machines initially read two cards from the polls incorrectly. The canvass caught the error, which changed the final total number of votes in Hoke but did not alter the outcome of any races.
“I noticed the error, so I had to reload those two cards to get it to read correctly. We just had to balance everything out,” Jackson explained.
The final election totals for all Hoke races have been updated following the canvass, and are on the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) website at https://www.ncsbe.gov/.
While no local races will go to a recount, the Hoke Board of Elections will have to work on recounting ballots for one statewide race. The race for North Carolina State Supreme Court Chief Justice is going to a recount, starting later this week. The race between Cheri Beasley, a Democrat, and Paul Newby, a Republican, was a close one with Beasley trailing Newby by 400 out of 5.4 million votes.
“That puts the race within the 10,000-vote threshold for the trailing candidate to demand a recount,” according to
The recount will likely take several days, but must be completed by Wednesday, November 25. This is the state’s first statewide recount since the 2016 state auditor’s race, which confirmed the results in that election, according to the NCSBE.
Hoke had a voter turnout rate of about 65 percent, with 21,728 out of 33,233 registered voters turning out to the polls or mailing in a ballot. Statewide, the voter turnout for the November 3 election was about 75 percent.
For more information or any questions, contact the Hoke County Board of Elections at (910) 875-9062.
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