Onslow ballots left out of count

The Republican primary for the Onslow County Board of Commissioners is back up in the air after about 4,000 ballots were omitted from election-night tallies because of a problem tabulating one-stop votes.

While the new unofficial results do not change the apparent winners, the crowded GOP primary for the five commissioner seats tightened significantly, and the outcome could change when provisional ballots are counted next week.

After a total of 3,702 votes were added in the Republican commissioners race - each voter could select up to five candidates - W.C. Jarman fell from fourth to fifth place, only eight votes ahead of sixth-place finisher Jeff Jones. Lionell Midgett was the big gainer, picking up enough votes to leap to third, ahead of Paul Buchanan and Jarman. Barbara Melton Ikner and Bill Keller still led the ballot.

Vote totals in all primaries were changed, but no other races, including the Democratic primary for commissioners, were significantly affected.

Onslow County Board of Elections Director Rose Whitehurst said there was no way to know how many of about 200 provisional votes cast may be counted, but she said it could be enough to change the commissioners race.

Provisional votes are those of people who wound up in a different precinct to vote or whose voting eligibility was otherwise in question. They were allowed to vote pending further review. Final results will be announced when canvassing of the vote is completed Tuesday.

N.C. Rep. Robert Grady, an easy winner in the GOP primary in District 15, said he filed a complaint with the state Board of Elections on Thursday afternoon after he noticed a discrepancy in one-stop votes and could not reach Whitehurst.

"I looked at the votes, and I knew there was a problem," he said. "If you look at certain races, you can see where the problem is. ... As an example, for House District 14, (it) showed 84 people casting a one-stop ballot and that is impossibly low."

District 15, Grady said, showed 205 votes for one-stop.

"There are more voters in District 14 than 15, and I knew that there had to be thousands of missing votes," he said Friday. "This morning, (the N.C. State Board of Elections) called me back and said I was correct, and there were a significant number of votes missing - approximately 4,000 missing ballots."

The missing votes were from the Jacksonville Commons and Verona one-stop voting.

"People that voted before (May 2) with the one-stop voting didn't have their vote counted," he said.

Grady said he was told that the tabulator broke, and the Onslow County Board of Elections then took the numbers from the computer and put them on a card. "The votes from this card were not counted (Tuesday night)," he said.

Whitehurst said that when she uploaded the votes, she thought the votes were counted.

"When we started looking over the report, we found that the votes didn't all go into the software," she said. "We started doing an audit and ran through the information (and found that) both one-stops weren't counted."

Whitehurst said that when she reloaded the software and numbers, everything looked and loaded fine.

"The totals all matched (and) we double- and triple-checked," she said. "The state board was contacted yesterday, and they looked into the situation and the board worked with us to make sure that everything was uploaded correctly."

Whitehurst said correct steps were taken to count the vote.

"I have heard of other counties that have had problems from time to time, and nothing is strange or out of the ordinary. We try very hard (to) have all the information out quickly and timely," she said.

An error in election-night results also was made in the last commissioners' race, the general election in 2004. That mistake - which also shifted the order of finish but did not change the apparent outcome - also was caught by Grady. It was blamed on a software error.

Contact government reporter Heather Gale at hgale@freedomenc.com or 910-219-8464.