What's next? No one knows

An N.C. Supreme Court ruling that throws out provisional ballots cast by voters outside their home precinct misread state legislators' intent, the leading House Democrat said Saturday.

House Speaker Jim Black, D-Mecklenburg, said legislators wanted those votes to count, and attorneys for the General Assembly are conferring to determine legislators' options in the wake of the court ruling.

Meanwhile, Mecklenburg County officials scrambled to decipher whether the ruling would reopen November's close race for an at-large seat on the board of county commissioners.

Marvin Bethune, the Mecklenburg commissioners' attorney, said he is not yet sure whether the ruling will apply only to candidates named in the suit: state schools superintendent candidate Bill Fletcher, a Republican, and a candidate for Guilford County commissioner.

Bethune said sitting board members should continue to meet until the question is resolved.

"What do you think we should do? Stop government until it's settled?" he asked.

The case now goes back to a Wake County court, where a judge will determine how to address the ballots the state Supreme Court said were illegal.

The decision, written by Justice George Wainwright, was unanimous among the five justices who participated in the case. Two justices, including the court's only Democrat, did not participate and did not say why.

In the decision, Wainwright wrote that other statutes require voters to cast ballots within their home precincts, and the court found no indication that the legislature's intent "was to enable voters to cast valid ballots outside their precincts of residence when such a vote would not otherwise be supported by state law."

It was not yet clear Saturday which races would be affected by the court ruling, and what options remained open to state legislators, even if they believe the court misunderstood their intent.

"Why would we not want every vote to count?" Black asked.

Some Mecklenburg County Republicans called on the local Board of Elections to immediately recount the ballots, something local elections officials said they were powerless to do until they received more instructions from state elections officials.

Statewide, the decision affects about 11,310 ballots. In Mecklenburg, there were nearly 1,800 out-of-precinct provisional ballots.

Those ballots could make a difference in the closely contested race for one of three at-large seats on the Mecklenburg County board. Democrat Parks Helms -- now the board's chairman -- easily won the top spot. But Democrats Wilhelmenia Rembert and Jennifer Roberts, who won the second- and third-largest number of votes, beat Republican Ruth Samuelson by 1,001 and 955 votes respectively.

The slim margin means that if a court orders the county's Board of Elections to throw out the contested ballots, it could change the outcome of the at-large race.

Rembert, Roberts and Samuelson all said they would wait to see what happens next.

"I am very prepared to wait and see how this unfolds," Rembert said.

The ballots affected by the ruling were cast by registered voters who went to the wrong precinct to vote. State elections officials said those voters were to be permitted to cast provisional ballots that would be counted after local elections officials made sure those voters were registered in the county.

Mecklenburg County commissioner Bill James, a Republican, filed a protest before the election, saying those votes should not be counted. After the election, he joined Fletcher's suit as a voter, seeking to have them thrown out.

On Saturday, James -- who had gall bladder surgery last week -- called the ruling "a late Christmas present."

He said that if the ballots are illegal, they should be thrown out in every race statewide.

"The idea that you would subtract illegal votes from Fletcher's race, but not subtract them from (Samuelson's) race, is an insult to democracy," he said.

But Helms said he believes the court's ruling was "questionable ... and it is my intent to continue to conduct business until some court that has jurisdiction says otherwise."

Helms said he spent Saturday morning talking to "knowledgeable people" about appealing the ruling and whether it applies to Mecklenburg.

"I do not intend to allow this, at least from my perspective, to go forward without exhausting every appeal," he said.

James said he would not seek a halt to the board's meetings, but warned that members "need to be aware that if we ever get into a situation where there are any 5-4 votes, it could have gone the other way. Chances are, there's probably a legal cloud hanging over those votes."

Bethune said the board has had few 5-4 votes so far, but said he is planning to research case law to determine whether any precedents apply. Helms said he has not ruled out seeking outside counsel to help clarify the board's situation.

Samuelson said she will wait to see how the legal questions are resolved, and whether, in the end, the ruling applies to her race.

If the votes are illegal, she said, "Justice to me would demand that you go back and you open every single race on the ballot. Do I expect them to do it? I don't know."