The Dive is a free weekly newsletter jointly published by WHQR and The Assembly. You can find more information and subscribe here.
Ticket-Splitting is Part of Our DNA
North Carolina’s propensity for ticket-splitting is so confounding that it recently inspired conspiracy theories.
One TikToker highlighted what he viewed as North Carolina’s suspicious voting irregularities in a video that’s been viewed 2.5 million times. “Are you really trying to tell me 352,357 Democrats decided to vote for the Democratic candidate for the governor but not for the president? Yeah, I believe that,” he said sarcastically.
On X, a user with 1.3 million followers suggested authorities should launch an inquiry in N.C.: “And as long as we don't storm the Capitol, why can't we DEMAND an investigation?”
Though it might be surprising—especially as the nation’s partisanship peaks—the truth is simple. Ticket-splitting may be unusual for other states, but it’s typical here. North Carolinians have a long history of voting for candidates from both parties in a single election.
“North Carolina possesses that rare political animal nowadays, the split-ticket voter,” said Michael Bitzer, chair of the Department of Politics at Catawba College. “You could say it’s in our political DNA.”
It also reflects historical trends. Even throughout the solid Democratic-controlled early decades of the 20th century, Bitzer said North Carolina was probably the most competitive two-party state.
In general, Bitzer said the state has seen a roughly 5-to-6-point slice of the electorate engage in ticket-splitting since 2008, while the rest are partisan loyalists. As we’ve seen from close races, those small slices can make all the difference.
For The Assembly, Johanna F. Still breaks down vote-splitting: Ticket-Splitting is Part of Our DNA
Election 2.0
This is an updated version of the piece that originally ran in The Dive.
Due to an unexpected, unannounced, and possibly unlawful move by the New Hanover County Board of Elections, between 1,500 and 1,800 mail-in ballots remained uncounted after the totals were announced on Election night.
Because mail-in ballots tend to lean Democratic (by as much as 2:1), they can upset close elections. There are several races where a Republican and Democratic candidate are just a few hundred votes apart. You can do the math. Candidates sure as hell are.
Confusion and frustration followed. County manager Chris Coudriet, usually even-keeled, has vented in several emails over the lack of communication from elections officials. The county’s attorney has suggested the elections board seek outside counsel.
It is, in short, a mess.
The proximate cause: an administrative decision by Elections Director Rae Hunter-Havens to hold back mail-in ballots received after October 31, with the intent of counting them on Thursday, Nov. 14, the day before the county canvass when all votes are finalized. The reasoning was, essentially, the lack of resources needed to handle the volume of ballots and verify their validity.
This seemingly contradicts state law requiring nearly all mail-in ballots received before Election Day to be counted and reported in vote totals that night. In fact, the state itself explicitly asked media outlets to share this as one of the things to expect. The state elections board has stuck up for Hunter-Havens, and its spokesperson called New Hanover’s reaction “ridiculous,” considering post-election absentee ballot counting happens every presidential cycle.
According to statewide data, several other urban counties also had large backlogs of uncounted mail-in ballots, including Durham, Forsyth, and Wake. Locally, Brunswick and Pender counties had proportionately far fewer uncounted mail-in ballots.
Both Hunter-Havens and Elections Board Chair Derrick Miller defended the administrative decision, saying it was based on their reading of state guidance. However, the state board has distanced itself, saying it gave no guidance that would have supported such a decision. Paul Cox, the general counsel for the North Carolina State Board of Elections, told WECT that the local board should have counted the ballots prior to Election Day — but stopped short of saying any laws had been broken.
At Tuesday’s election board meeting, Miller acknowledged there had been communication issues. He did fall on his sword a bit, admitting he had instructed Hunter-Havens to prioritize preparing for the canvass over responding to questions.
Another issue raised at the meeting was resources for the board. Earlier in the week, the county had preemptively emphasized its full financial support for the elections board. The county's chief financial officer noted the nearly $1.8 million budget has been increased both of the last two years. He added the county had not rejected any requests for resources and had never penalized the elections office for going over budget.
However, in an email, Miller said he personally felt the elections office was underfunded, hindering its ability to keep up with increasing demands and new laws.
“The county tells us to submit lean budget requests, so we do,” he wrote, adding that staff had been working 70 to 80 or more hours a week. “At some point, you have to get more people.”
Asked if additional staff could have allowed the elections office to avoid the administrative delay, Miller said yes. Miller also said he hopes the county reconsiders an earlier request to raise precinct official pay to the county’s minimum wage to help "better staff early voting sites and curbside voting."
The county noted it had declined a request for hourly wage increases — at a cost of around $48,050 — because "county-wide cost-of-living wage increases were applicable to Board of Elections staff, thus any further increase was deemed duplicative" and because "the county underwent a pay study two years ago that was applicable to all employees and thus management believed their pay was appropriate."
A week's worth of confusion and frustration after the election culminated in a formal elections protest filed Tuesday by Republican Commissioner Dane Scalise, whose re-election bid landed him in the second of three top spots, ahead of longtime Democratic incumbent Jonathan Barfield, Jr., who finished fourth by about 500 votes.
Scalise’s petition demands the opportunity to inspect the ballots in question and that they be counted immediately. However, there won’t be a preliminary hearing on it until the canvass on Friday, after those votes are tallied. So, it’s unclear if Scalise would have standing, or reason, to take further action after that.
It's important to note the distinction between the elections staff making a procedural error — even breaking the law — and any kind of fraud that would shift the outcome of the election. On Tuesday, the bipartisan elections board unanimously affirmed its faith in the integrity and accuracy of this year’s vote counting and universally praised the hard work of Hunter-Havens and her team.
Despite the frustration, there has been no evidence of fraud, miscounting, or a break in the chain of custody of the uncounted ballots. There’s nothing, for example, to justify Republican candidate John Hinnant's claim on X, strongly implying just that.
"Election fraud is always something that happens elsewhere until your name is on the ballot where the fraud is happening," he wrote over the weekend.
Likewise there's nothing to support former commissioner and influential conservative Woody White’s claim on X that “the only remedy in this situation is to disqualify these ballots. Chain of custody for every one, is now in question, and what is the appropriate punishment for violation of state election law?"
Asked about the post, Hunter-Havens called White’s suggestion “frankly shocking” and noted she’d consulted with the state board’s general counsel. “County boards of elections will not discard the eligible ballots of duly authorized voters and violate their constitutional right to vote,” she said.
As I’ve written elsewhere, this story was caused by poor communication. More prompt, direct answers like that could have nipped this in the bud.
