Primary canvassing set for today
Published 8:40 pm Monday, July 23, 2012
The Beaufort County Board of Elections will canvass ballots from last week’s second primary at 11 a.m. today.
The canvassing will take place in the board’s offices at 1208 Highland Drive and in the rear of the building that used to house Tideland Mental Health’s offices. The board will review vote totals from several races, including the second primary between Mattie Lawson and Arthur Williams. Unofficial vote totals from that second primary show Lawson being picked as the Republican nominee to take on Democrat Paul Tine in the race for the 6th District seat in the N.C. House of Representatives. The general election is Nov. 6.
The N.C. State Board of Elections’ website shows Lawson with 1,512 votes (67 percent) to Williams’ 741 votes (33 percent) in the district, which includes part of Beaufort County and all of Dare, Hyde and Washington counties. Lawson carried all of the counties in the district. The State Board of Elections’ website show Lawson tallied 778 votes in Beaufort County to Williams’ 532 votes. Lawson garnered 635 votes in Dare County to Williams’ 143 votes. In Hyde County, Lawson collected 37 votes to Williams’ 27 votes. Lawson picked up 62 votes in Washington County, with Williams getting 39 votes.
As part of its canvassing duties, the board will review any provision ballots voters might have filled out last week. Voters whose registration status can’t be verified on the spot mark provisional ballots on Election Day. On or before canvassing day, the ballots are checked against elections records to clear up any registration discrepancies. The board determines if a provisional ballot is valid and if votes on it are added to vote totals.
Boards of elections across North Carolina will canvass ballots today, too.
As vote totals came in to the Beaufort County Board of Elections office during the second primary last week, Kellie Harris Hopkins, the county’s elections director, said she expected few provisional ballots to be reviewed by the board and that any changes in vote totals as a result of the canvass likely would not cause changes in outcomes of the second primaries held in the county.