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18 Votes: Guilford County Commissioner's seat could go to a recount

A close election, possibly coming down to absentee ballots--no we're not talking about the race for President. This is a race for county commissioner.

GREENSBORO, N.C. — It's been three days since the elections and several races have not been called. 

Here in Guilford County some county seats are very close. The closest race is separated by only 18 votes.

It's the race for a seat on the Guilford County Board of Commissioners in district four.

Incumbent Alan Branson is just a sliver behind democrat Mary Beth Murphy.

Branson posted a written, formal request for a recount on his Facebook page.

However, the Guilford County Board of Elections still has votes to count, so both are waiting to see whether that will be necessary.

"I do think within the next couple of weeks we'll have things figured out," Branson said.

"I'm looking forward to every vote being counted," Murphy said.

It's not just the presidential race that is a close election possibly coming down to absentee ballots. This Guilford County race may be determined by mail-ins too.

"I would have thought things on the local level would have been a little bit better but that has not been the case," Branson said.

Murphy leads Branson 21,521 to 21,503 votes making the margin just 18 votes. She leads 50.02 percent to 49.98 percent.

"If I've done my math correctly I think the difference in votes to be outside of one percent is gonna be 450 votes difference," Murphy said.

The county board of elections still has at least 1,500 mail-in ballots to count. Branson said he was told by election officials that about 230 of those are for district four.

Those votes will be included in the final tally next week.

"If we're within the margin of error we'll ask for a recount and we'll go back through the absentee by mail," Branson said.

"I think that was expected and I certainly don't want to be in the position where there's any question about the legitimacy of the outcome of this election," Murphy said.

Branson told WFMY News 2's Grace Holland he is worried about the possibility of voter fraud but said he hasn't heard of any cases in district four.

Both candidates said they have full faith in county elections workers to count the votes correctly.

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