With Newby leading, NC chief justice race will get statewide recount
North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley asked for a statewide recount Tuesday after her challenger, Justice Paul Newby, led 406 votes out of 5.4 million cast.
Newby, a Republican, and Beasley, a Democrat, have swapped leads throughout the past week with their margins decreasing at one point to only five votes between them.
All counties had reported official results by Tuesday night after Rockingham County turned in its final totals. It was not enough to reverse Newby’s narrow lead.
The recount must begin by Thursday and be finished by Nov. 25.
“The race for chief justice will not be over until every single vote has been counted,” Benjamin Woods, a spokesman for Beasley’s campaign, said in a news release.
“This race is far from decided, and we look forward to ensuring the counting process continues so that every voice is heard,” Woods said.
Beasley’s appointment by Gov. Roy Cooper in 2019 made her North Carolina’s first African American chief justice.
Newby is the longest serving justice on the bench.
Newby leads
Newby joined the Supreme Court in 2004. His campaign website says he has written more than 300 court opinions.
Newby was born in Asheboro and was raised in Jamestown, where he graduated from Ragsdale High School. He holds a public policy degree from Duke University and a law degree from UNC-Chapel Hill.
He interned with the U.S. Supreme Court and the Guilford County Public Defender’s office, the first in the state. Then he worked in private practice before being appointed in 1984 as a U.S. assistant district attorney in Raleigh. He served in that capacity for 19 years before becoming a justice.
Newby has taught many courses for attorneys and at several law schools including Campbell Law School where he remains an adjunct professor.
Newby is married and has four children, a dog and two cats, one named Cleo-Catra.
Republican sweep
If Newby is declared the winner after the recount he will not only oversee the N.C. Supreme Court but also the state’s judicial system.
His role in the latter would include determining how the courts go forward in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as Beasley has directed for the past eight months.
His win would mean Republicans swept the Supreme Court races this election with Court of Appeals Judge Phil Berger Jr. and Tamara Barringer, an attorney, law professor and former state senator, also winning seats on the state’s highest court.
If Newby wins, along with Berger and Barringer, it would bring the Supreme Court makeup from six Democrats and one Republican to a more balanced four Democrats and three Republicans.
Republicans would have swept the eight statewide judicial races. State GOP Chair Michael Whatley said in a busy election year, the party still found a way to focus on the races.
“The biggest thing we did was kind of elevated the judges … into a top tier priority,” he said Tuesday. “Everything we did statewide was focused (on the races).”
The party’s Judicial Victory Fund spent around $1 million on digital and mail campaigns to persuade voters that Republican judges would be tougher on crime and not support efforts to defund the police, a slogan that emerged from this summer’s protests that following the police killing of George Floyd.
Whatley said the GOP wanted to make sure “voters know there was an ideological spread on these races.”
State Democratic Party spokesman Robert Howard said his party spent $1.5 million trying to elect its slate of judges. Its slogan: “Don’t forget the judges.”
“The effort focused on the importance of our courts to act as a fair and independent check on an unaccountable Republican legislature and ensure progress on racial justice and also highlighted the diversity of our judicial slate,” Howard said in a statement.
How a recount will work
Noon Tuesday was the deadline for a recount request despite several counties continuing to finalize their vote totals into Tuesday afternoon, according to the State Board of Elections.
No other statewide candidates were in range to be eligible for a recount, but in an email provided by the elections board, its attorney Katelyn Love addressed what would happen if another candidate falls within that range after Tuesday’s deadline. The board would notify that candidate and then offer 48 hours to make that request, Love said.
Late Monday, State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell put out a memo to the county elections offices on how to handle a recount.
She told the boards without high-speed scanners to plan to scan 600-900 ballots per hour.
Boards are required to take 15-minute breaks every two hours and Bell suggested 30-minute meal breaks to avoid becoming tired in the process.
The public must also have access to the meetings, though that can be through an online platform to help with social distancing. The governor’s mass gathering mandate does not apply to the recount, Bell wrote.
A two-person bipartisan team will be assigned to each tabulator during the recount.
This story was originally published November 17, 2020 at 12:07 PM with the headline "With Newby leading, NC chief justice race will get statewide recount."
