Democrat Roy Cooper Calls Recount Demand ‘A Last-Ditch Effort From Governor McCrory to Delay and Deny the Results of This Election’
North Carolina Republican Governor Pat McCrory has formally demanded a recount of all results in the state’s 100 counties. McCrory’s Democratic challenger Roy Cooper has already declared himself the winner, while the first-term governor has spent the past two weeks trying desperately to find ways to challenge the results of the gubernatorial race.
A spokesperson for the North Carolina State Board of Elections confirmed that results currently show McCrory trailing Attorney General Cooper by one-tenth of a point. However the spokesperson refused to respond to a question from NCRM as to whether or not the board would grant McCrory’s request.
“With serious concerns of potential voter fraud emerging across the state, it is becoming more apparent that a thorough recount is one way the people of North Carolina can have confidence in the results, process and system,” McCrory’s letter reads.
McCrory and his fellow elected Republicans in the North Carolina legislature were slapped down in a 4th Circuit Court of Appeals voting rights case ruling this summer, which found a GOP voter ID law systematically disenfranchised Black voters.Â
Reuters reports the official results show McCrory “trailing his Democratic challenger, Attorney General Roy Cooper, by one-tenth of a point,” and notes that a “recount is mandatory if the margin is less than 10,000 votes once all 100 counties have finished their canvasses, a spokesman for the election board said. As of Tuesday afternoon, Cooper’s lead was 6,187 out of 4.7 million votes cast.”
Cooper’s campaign insists his lead is somewhat larger.
Calling the Republican governor’s demand for a recount “a last-ditch effort from Governor McCrory to delay and deny the results of this election,” the Cooper campaign says their candidate “leads by 8,569 votes – a number that is growing daily as counties finalize election results. We are confident that a recount will do nothing to change the fact that Roy Cooper has won this election.”
Political observers and community human rights activists see the results of the election as a referendum on the Governor’s support of HB2, a state law passed barring transgender persons use of public bathrooms that match their gender identity, instead requiring trans persons to use facilities that conform to their gender assigned at birth.
The law was passed by in a hastily called special session of the state’s General Assembly after the largest city in the state, Charlotte, passed a measure protecting the trans community. Passage of the measure led to organised widespread boycotting of the state by entertainers, sports teams, with both the National Basketball Association and the National Collegiate Athletic Association relocating major annual events out of the state.
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