First up, WHQR's Kelly Kenoyer and Ben Schachtman work through how 2,000 absentee ballots ended up uncounted after Election Night — and how a lack of communication around the process spiraled into bogus fraud claims and even calls to toss out legitimate ballots. We'll also take a look at the funding for the New Hanover County Board of Elections, and how that might have impacted the situation.
Then, WHQR's Rachel Keith highlights some of her work compiling and analyzing campaign finance reports. She broke down what individuals — and industries — supported candidates, as well as how funds moved between some candidates in 'safe' districts to other candidates in more contested races.
Campaign finance 101
To find campaign finance reports for candidates in local races, you'll want to visit your local Board of Elections site. New Hanover County is hosted here (make sure you pick the election year you want). For Brunswick County's here. Pender County's isn't available online yet.
For state representative and council of state races, you can find campaign finance reports here. You can search by 'entity' — usually a candidate's committee — or by transaction (including by specific donors). Note: Names can be tricky — there may be multiple committees for the same candidate if they're run for different offices; donors may also show up under variations on their name depending on how they were entered on reporting forms.
A few key terms:
- Quarterly reports: These are the main reporting form for candidates, who have to file more frequently when they're appearing on an upcoming ballot. You can find info on what time periods these reports cover and when they're due here.
- 48-hour report: Donations over $1,000 have to be reported, as the name implies, within 48 hours.
- Receipts/expenditures: How much money the candidate has brought in, and spent, in both that reporting period and for the overall campaign.
- Aggregated individual contribution: Small donations ($50 or less) don't require donor information.
- Campaign limits: The current donation limit in North Carolina is $6,400 (with exceptions for recognized political parties and spouses). The limit applies to each election, meaning if there's a primary and general election, the total for one election year could be $12,800.
Links:
- Deep dive: Campaign finance in the New Hanover County commissioners and school board races
- A look at campaign finance reports for New Hanover County commissioner and school board candidates
- Election protest dismissed, vote totals finalized at New Hanover County canvass
- Additional ballots shift rankings, but not winners in New Hanover County school board and commissioner races
- Sunday Edition: Faith and Credit
- The Dive: Bone-deep ticket splitting, and the ballot-counting snafu
- New Hanover County elections board expect to tally more than 1,900 additional valid ballots
- NHC attorney suggests local elections office seek outside counsel, county manager defends elections investments
- "Second estimate" increases number of uncounted New Hanover County absentee ballots
- Thousands of New Hanover ballots to be counted, county manager voices frustration
[Editor's note: Berger's campaign filings appear to report roughly $270,000 in total receipts. That included around $70,000 from the state Democratic Party and roughly the same amount (over $68,000) in donations from Berger's campaign to the state party. The state party handled some campaign advertising for Berger, which shows up as an in-kind donation. In reality, it was essentially a zero-sum exchange between the campaigns.]
