North Carolina’s top criminal investigations agency is looking into whether there was wrongdoing in last spring’s primary election in Durham County, the likely ground zero in the ongoing fight over last week’s still-in-doubt race for governor. A State Bureau of Investigation spokesman and Durham’s district attorney confirmed Monday that investigators have been on the case for two weeks. The bureau is investigating whether crimes were committed in the mishandling of more than 1,000 provisional ballots during the March primary elections. Some may have been counted twice and election officials presented the vote count as true when it was wrong, according to an interim report presented to the state elections board in May. The miscount didn’t affect the primary’s outcome. The state board’s completed investigation was turned over to Durham District Attorney Roger Echols, who brought in state investigators Oct. 31, bureau spokesman Shannon O’Toole said.
Problems identified during the March primary are different from the technical glitches observed by bipartisan election observers that led to the late reporting of 94,000 votes on election night, Durham County elections board chairman William Brian Jr. said. Gov. Pat McCrory’s re-election campaign last weekend claimed wrongful or illegal conduct by the Republican-majority elections board in the heavily Democratic county. “There’s no connection between the investigation that the SBI has engaged in and this last election,” said Brian, a registered Republican.
A lawyer for the state Republican Party filed a formal protest accusing the county elections board of “malfeasance” in counting the ballots. Durham County’s elections board scheduled a meeting Wednesday to hear details of the protest filed by GOP lawyer Tom Stark, who lives in Durham County.
McCrory led in the gubernatorial contest for much of election night until the previously unreported early votes from Durham County flooded into the statewide tally shortly before midnight. That turned the advantage to Democrat and Attorney General Roy Cooper, who now leads in the race by about 5,000 votes.
Full Article: NC criminal agency investigates county key to governor race | News & Observer.