NEW HANOVER COUNTY — Almost a week has passed since Election Day and 3,762 absentee and provisional ballots remain uncounted with little answers to why, despite a legal complaint issued by a sitting commissioner.
READ MORE: Absentee ballot count ticks up in NHC, county leadership and state elections staff at odds
New Hanover County Commissioner Dane Scalise has retained legal counsel, Philip Strach at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, to request the New Hanover County Board of Elections count remaining absentee ballots before its scheduled meeting on Nov. 14. It was filed Nov. 8 and sent to the local board of elections.
“It isn’t just about me and my campaign and whether or not I end up in the top three; this is about the entire system,” Scalise said on a phone call with Port City Daily Monday. “This is about all of the other candidates. This is about the people of New Hanover County being able to have confidence that their board of elections is doing what it is supposed to do under the law.”
Though results are not official, Scalise ranks second highest among votes for six board of commissioners candidates. Only 502 votes separate Scalise, a Republican, and the fourth-place finisher, Democrat Jonathan Barfield Jr., a 16 year commissioner edged out by 249 votes from Democrat Stephanie Walker, currently in third place.
However, there are two thin-margin contests — county commissioners and New Hanover County Board of Education — where the uncounted ballots could prove consequential.
“The people of North Carolina and the citizens of New Hanover County deserve to know the relevant absentee ballot results before Nov. 14, 2024,” the complaint states. “Indeed these counts should have already been performed.”
NHC Elections Director Rae Hunter-Havens, so far unresponsive to PCD requests due to offices being closed on Veterans Day, released a statement on Nov. 6 reporting there were 1,500 uncounted ballots — that has since increased to 1,750 — and absentees received after Oct. 31 would be counted on Nov. 14.
Scalise’s lawyer points out in the complaint that the administrative decision to count ballots received Nov. 1, 2 and 3 after Election Day seemed to run afoul of North Carolina law. General Statute 163‑234 states “absentee ballots received prior to election day shall be counted on election day.”
In the days after the election, county manager Chris Coudriet expressed frustration over the discrepancy in state law and local action, according to emails he sent to commissioners. Coudriet reported the local board’s administrative cutoff was advised by the State Board of Elections, but state BOE staff didn’t back the claim. Coudriet said Hunter-Havens told him the cutoff was made due to the work needed to vet ballots and sort them into proper precincts.
“It appears that New Hanover BOE has hid behind supposed administrative limitations,” Scalise’s attorney wrote in the complaint. “However, this justification does little for New Hanover BOE’s dereliction of duty or the harm caused to citizens and candidates such as Mr. Scalise.”
The commissioner has requested — and was denied — the opportunity to examine the envelopes of the uncounted ballots to ensure they were received by deadline. Strach argues the denial is another violation of state law.
“It is well established that absentee ballot envelopes are public records,” Strach wrote in the complaint.
PCD was unable to reach Strach and a request to Scalise for the statute or court ruling determining the envelopes as public record was unanswered by press.
North Carolina Statute 163‑228 mandates the state board maintain an official register of mail-in absentee ballots with certain data points, including voter name, precinct, party affiliation and the date the ballot was mailed. The statute allows the public to observe ballot counting in board of elections meetings, but does not address whether the public can view absentee envelopes.
Scalise’s complaint also requests the remaining ballots be counted before Nov. 14, though this isn’t possible per statute. The local board of elections approved a resolution at its Sept. 10 meeting to count absentee ballots on Election Day and Nov. 14. A subsequent day is allowed for counting ballots cast on Election Day, per state law, but this date must be set two weeks in advance.
According to Coudriet’s emails, the local board told him Nov. 14 was chosen based on historical precedent. However, Scalise worries any ballots that need “curing” will not have time to be, as the canvass — or official certification of the results — occurs on Nov. 15. Candidates have until the following Monday, Nov. 18, to request a recount, if the races remain close.
In addition, Scalise is requesting several items of information from the local BOE, including:
- A complete description of the chain of custody for all absentee ballots received before Nov. 5, 2024, which remain uncounted
- Written assurances and descriptions of all actions to prevent ballot tampering
- A summary of how these ballots are specifically identified and tracked based on their date of receipt
- Daily updates on the status of counting overseas ballots
Scalise told PCD his legal counsel was in talks with the local board of election to address his requests, but he has not received a response. He said there are no additional actions planned beyond the complaint at this point.
Incumbent commissioner Bill Rivenbark — the top vote-getter in this year’s election — will not be taking legal action himself but did express support for Scalise’s complaint.
“If one person does it, that takes care of all of us,” Rivernbark said.
Discontented by the predicament, Rivenbark chalked up the decision of a cutoff date to a lack of preparation on the county elections part, saying they should have anticipated high volumes of ballots.
Presidential races traditionally bring out more voters. The elections turned out 72% of New Hanover County registered voters, compared to the last presidential election in 2020 that spurred 74% participation. While 2024’s overall voter turnout was not record-breaking, early voting was, with 55% of registered voters casting ballots ahead of Election Day.
Commissioner Rob Zapple — not among candidates up for re-election — pointed to heavy voter turnout as a plausible reason behind the administrative cutoff, but believes it was a necessary step in light of the challenges workers might have faced.
“The reason we have so many absentee ballots right now that have not been counted yet is because there were so many coming in that they were scrambling — the board of elections, that is — to make sure that each one of the absentee ballots was legitimate, that they could all be certified, and they can go through the process. So I think it’s just a matter of volume that’s happening here or, you know, quantity,” Zapple said.
PCD reached out to Hunter-Havens to ask when, where, how and why the cutoff was made, since the state board declined it was involved in the decision. A response was not received by press.
Since the voter ID law went into effect, there are more measures that must be taken to ensure a ballot’s veracity. Voter signatures, photo identification, and witness information have to be verified on all absentee ballots, and each is date-stamped upon arrival to the BOE desk. The ballots are then stored in a secure location to protect the secrecy of the elections, and sorted by precinct and alphabetically.
“You have to assume [high volume voting] is going to happen, and it did, and they weren’t prepared for it,” Rivenbark said.
NHC opened up 17 days of early voting on Oct. 17, sternly opposed by some Republican county board of elections members earlier in the spring. Republicans Tom Morris and Bruce Kemp expressed concerns over exhaustion of election officials and pressure on staff for such a long early-voting period.
Kemp even put forth an alternative plan to cut early voting, but it was denied by the state board of elections. It’s inked in state statute that county boards must conduct early voting no earlier than the third Thursday before Election Day and no later than 3 p.m. on the last Saturday before the election.
Hunter-Havens told board members in the spring there would be no issues with staffing for the entire length of early voting. According to previous Port City Daily reporting, the budget included roughly 10 to 13 officials to work the five early voting sites, with estimated costs for staffing to be $169,720 for 825 total operation hours.
On Nov. 6, Hunter-Havens wrote to media: “Working through this volume of data is a sizable undertaking.”
In a memo to the county on Friday, she also explained counting absentee and provisional ballots at a later time is “standard procedure to ensure all eligible votes are counted accurately.”
It’s Zapple’s opinion the cutoff date anticipating a high volume of votes was the right move, he said.
Rivenbark thought otherwise: “If they knew they were going to have a problem, they should’ve asked for more help, and we would have certainly given it to them.”
While counting absentee ballots post-Election Day is normal, Coudriet expressed his worry over an administrative cutoff also being construed as commonplace when state statute seems to say otherwise.
He wrote in an email to NHC commissioners: “The other item of concern I’m being told is this is how we’ve always done it, i.e., an administrative cutoff. I cannot reconcile the statement we did this at the guidance of the state board when the state law says otherwise.”
Following this line of logic, Rivenbark and Zapple both agree that they have never seen an administrative cutoff date during any of their election experiences. Rivenbark served on the school board before being elected as a commissioner in 2020; Zapple has been elected three times to the commission since 2014 with his most recent term expiring in 2026.
Rivenbark concluded he would like to know the ballots are being kept safe and untampered with, but he can’t confidently say that’s the case.
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