Chief Justice Beasley asked for a ballot recount over her contested seat as conservative Justice Paul Newby narrowly secured an unofficial win with a lead of more than 300 votes out of nearly 5.4 million counted ballots.
State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said in a statement that the state's county boards of elections are working hard "to ensure accurate and fair results."
"Recounts are an important part of the elections process that help guarantee voters' wishes are realized in the closest of contests," Brison Bell said.
The recount will begin later this week and will take several days for some counties, but the task must be completed by Nov. 25, according to the State Board of Elections.
Before all 100 counties unofficially finished tallying votes, the North Carolina Democratic Party's counsel John Wallace requested, on Chief Justice Beasley's behalf, that the State Board of Elections hold a ballot recount.
Wallace told the State Board of Elections in the request that the election results were close enough to warrant a recount under North Carolina state election law.
"As the completion of the canvasses in all 100 counties comes to a close, the margin between Chief Justice Beasley and her opponent, Justice Paul Newby, is 285 votes, or less than 0.5% of the total votes casted in the race," he said.
According to the North Carolina State Board of Elections' unofficial election results, all 100 counties have since reported their results and Justice Newby has defeated Chief Justice Beasley by 366 votes, a less than 1% margin.
Under the state's election law, a candidate can request a statewide recount if the winner prevails by less than 0.5% of the total votes cast in the election. A recount request must be made by the second business day after the county canvass and the recount will be monitored by the State Board of Elections, according to the statute.
Justice Newby has served on the state Supreme Court for 16 years while Chief Justice Beasley joined the court in 2012, according to the candidates' website bios. Chief Justice Beasley became the first African-American woman to become chief justice in the state in 2019, according to her website.
Chief Justice Beasley's campaign listed her top priorities as modernizing court systems, expanding recovery courts, forming school partnerships and creating a faith and justice alliance, while Justice Newby rallied around a strict reading of the constitution, according to the candidates' websites.
Chief Justice Beasley's campaign manager Benjamin Woods said in a statement that the chief justice race is "far from decided" in light of the fact that thousands of ballots have not been counted.
Woods said that the campaign "will be filing protest petitions across the state to ensure over 2,000 absentee and provisional ballots that were wrongfully rejected are included in the final tally."
A campaign representative for Justice Newby did not respond to a request for comment.
--Editing by Michael Watanabe.
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