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Election Update
On Tuesday Chief Justice Cheri Beasley requested a recount in her reelection race after the discovery of voting errors in two counties during the canvass shifted the lead to her opponent, Paul Newby, with a 406-vote margin. Counties have until the end of November 25 to submit recount results. Beasley subsequently filed 89 election protests across the state alleging that 2000 provisional and absentee ballots were improperly excluded from the count. After multiple protests he filed the previous week were all dismissed, Newby also filed a second round of protests.
On Tuesday the Attorney General race was called for incumbent Josh Stein. Though he won by a narrow margin, it was greater than the 10,000-vote or smaller difference needed for his opponent to request a recount.
Environmental Policy
On Thursday the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling against Murphy-Brown/Smithfield in a series of nuisance suits against the company. The ruling affirmed an earlier District Court decision that industrialized hog farming operations on a farm in Bladen County, a contract grower for Murphy-Brown/Smithfield Foods, unduly harmed its neighbors’ quality of life. The appellate judges sided with Murphy-Brown’s lawyers in one particular, however: they ruled that there would need to be a rehearing governing the amount of punitive damages issued to plaintiffs, this time without mention of corporate finances or executive compensation. Smithfield released a statement later in the day on Thursday that they had reached a settlement, the details of which will not be disclosed.