With provisional ballots counted, Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page's lead has widened in his primary bid to knock off one of North Carolina's most powerful politicians.
County boards of election met Friday to consider provisional ballots, which are cast during an election when, say, a voter doesn't have their identification with them or hasn't updated their address with their local board of election. Local officials must consider whether those votes should count and then, as they did on Friday, tally them.
Page started the day with a two-vote lead in the district that includes all of Rockingham County and effectively makes a lowercase "n" shape around Guilford County, looping in rural areas and omitting Greensboro.
Rockingham County elections officials counted 97 provisional ballots of 137 cast. Page added 56 votes there, Berger 26.
In Guilford County, 15 ballots that had cast Republican ballots in Senate District 26 counted. Of those, Berger picked up 12 votes and Page picked up three votes.
That took Page's total lead in the contest to 23 votes.
In addition to the provisional ballots, there could still be ballots sent by members of the military or by registered voters who were overseas at the time of Tuesday's primary election. Those ballots must arrive at the appropriate elections office by 5 p.m. on Thursday, March 12.
If they arrive in time, county boards will count them at next Friday's canvasses.
In the event a candidate is trailing by 1% or less, as seems virtually certain in this case, they would have until noon on Tuesday, March 17 to request a recount.
North Carolina's most closely watched primary pits Berger, who has led the Senate as president pro tempore for the last 15 years and is in the midst of his 13th term in office, against Rockingham County Sheriff Page, who first won election in 1998.
