More than 51,000 voted in this Charlotte judicial race. Just 77 votes separate candidates.

With some provisional ballots still to be counted, one Mecklenburg County judicial race is separated by just 77 votes — well within the range for a recount.

Republican Matt Osman, with 25,982 votes, currently leads Democrat Kimberly Best with 25,905 votes, in the race for N.C. Superior Court Judge in District 26B, in Ballantyne and Quail Hollow. Osman led by 417 votes on Election Day, but his lead narrowed with the counting of mail-in ballots. Election officials have yet to count about 1,550 provisional ballots countywide.

Mecklenburg Board of Elections spokeswoman Kristin Mavromatis said she expects 700 or 800 provisional ballots countywide to be included in final vote totals. It’s too hard to say how many of those will be from Osman and Best’s judicial district and even harder to say how many of those ballots will actually include votes in that race, Mavromatis said.

Down-ballot races like those for local judges see lower voter participation than high-profile races such as for U.S. Senate.

If the candidates end up within 1% of each other, the one with fewer votes has the right to request a recount. The demand for a recount must be be received by the State Board of Elections by noon Monday. The canvass of votes by Mecklenburg County, when they’ll finalize tallies for both candidates, is Friday.

One other close Mecklenburg race

There’s one other Mecklenburg race that could be within recount range.

Barbara Bleiweis and Alonzo Hill are currently separated by 4,676 votes. Nancy Carter came away with the most votes, 163,810, so she’s a guaranteed winner. The election will send two winners to the Mecklenburg Soil and Water Conservation District Board of Supervisors.

Bleiweis is the current chair of the board. Carter is the vice chair.

With those 1,550 provisional ballots left — and only some of those will actually count — Hill and Bleiweis could end within the 1% of total votes needed to give Hill the opportunity for a recount.

Mavromatis said because the two are separated by more than 4,000 votes, a recount has no chance to affect the outcome.

Editor’s note: The initial version of this story contained an incorrect deadline to call a recount in this race.

This story was originally published November 15, 2022 at 2:45 PM.

Will Wright

The Charlotte Observer

Will Wright covers politics in Charlotte and North Carolina. He previously covered eastern Kentucky for the Lexington Herald-Leader, and worked as a reporting fellow at The New York Times.