With Sheriff Sam Page holding a 23-vote lead in the Republican primary for N.C. Senate District 26, Sen. Phil Berger is seeking a second recount. A machine recount ended without changing Page’s advantage, and state law allows Berger to request a hand-to-eye recount of randomly selected precincts because the margin remains under 1%.
Berger asked for a manual review of selected ballots and also pushed for a broader review of overvote and undervote ballots, those in which machines recorded either no vote in the race or markings for both candidates. In a letter, Berger wrote that “the machines did not count 222 ballots that were labeled as overvotes or undervotes” and argued that if even a small share of those ballots were misread, the result could be wrong. His campaign also contends Rockingham and Guilford counties handled some ballot markings differently during the recount process.
Page’s campaign pushed back sharply. Spokesman Patrick Sebastian said Berger was seeking special treatment, arguing that state law does not allow him to bypass the normal recount process. Under that process, a partial hand-to-eye recount comes first, and only if that sample shows enough discrepancy could a full hand recount follow.
The stakes are high. Berger has led the Senate since 2011 and has played a central role in shaping Republican policy in North Carolina, including tax cuts, regulatory changes, abortion restrictions and election law changes. A loss would force Senate Republicans to choose new leadership and could reshape the balance of power in Raleigh.
The dispute also highlights broader tensions over election administration and ballot review standards in an extremely close race. On March 23, the State Board of Elections randomly selected three precincts in Guilford and Rockingham counties for the hand-to-eye recount, the next step in deciding whether a full manual recount will take place.
Editor’s note: This article was drafted with the assistance of artificial intelligence and was reviewed and fact-checked by a member of the NC Political News editorial team before publication.