2 Chapel Hill candidates ran together for council. One won the final count by 6 votes.
Update: The story was updated at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 17, 2023, with the official election results.
Official election results confirmed small business owner Elizabeth Sharp is the fourth and final winner in the Chapel Hill Town Council election.
A canvass of all ballots finished this week at local Boards of Elections offices with six more votes for Sharp than for her closest competitor, Renuka Soll. The women campaigned together as part of mayoral candidate Adam Searing’s chosen council slate in the Nov. 7 election.
The final election results released Friday showed Sharp had 30 more votes than Soll in two Chapel Hill precincts located in Durham County, and Soll had 24 more votes than Sharp in 16 Chapel Hill precincts in Orange County.
The final count was 5,022 votes for Sharp, or 10.7% of the vote, to 5,016 votes for Soll, or 10.69% — a difference of about 0.12%.
State law allows candidates to seek a recount if the difference between them and the winner is less than 1%. Soll said Friday she will not ask for a recount.
Other winners of the Nov. 7 election were incumbent Council member Amy Ryan, with 13.88%, or 6,510 votes, and newcomers Melissa McCullough — 13.83%, or 6,490 votes — and Theodore Nollert — 13.56%, or 6,362 votes.
The winners will be sworn into office and join the council in December.
The canvass certifying the Nov. 7 results included provisional and mail-in, or absentee, ballots that were postmarked by Election Day and arrived at the elections office by 5 p.m. Nov. 13.
There were 311 registered voters in Orange County who requested mail-in ballots for the Chapel Hill races, elections Director Rachel Raper said. Of those, 142 were returned by Election Day, she said. The rest could be in the mail or represent voters who did not vote or who voted in person instead, she said.
Only 63 provisional ballots were reported Nov. 7, including in Hillsborough and Carrboro.
The Durham County Board of Elections mailed out any absentee ballots requested by Chapel Hill voters in that county, Raper said, adding the number is probably small, since there are only 2,500 registered Chapel Hill voters who live in Durham County.
Soll, a 56-year-old tutor at New Hope Elementary School and an activist with North Carolinians against Gun Violence, had received 85 mail-in votes as of Nov. 7, compared with 79 for Sharp, state data showed.
Previous recount; making plans
The last Chapel Hill election recount was in 2019, when then-newcomer Tai Huynh finished just ahead of incumbent Council member Nancy Oates. Oates asked for a recount, which gave Huynh a 24-vote victory in the certified election results.
Huynh also benefited from Chapel Hill voters in Durham County, because he only had a two-vote lead over Oates in Orange County.
This year, Huynh declined to seek a second term in office. He and Council member Michael Parker will leave the Town Council in December. Searing will remain on the board to serve the last two years of his first council term.
Sharp, 45, ran as a team with Searing and his four-person council slate, which also included Soll, David Adams and Breckany Eckhardt.
Searing’s rival, Jessica Anderson, was elected the town’s next mayor with nearly 59% of the votes compared to almost 41% for Searing. McCullough and Nollert closely aligned with Anderson’s platform, although they did not run as a team.
Sharp had a lot of praise for the candidates who ran with her this year.
“Honestly, I think we did just phenomenally well, considering how much was piled on us and how much the powers that be and establishment lined up behind Jess (Anderson) and her other supporters,” Sharp said.
“Honestly, I think we should have had no chance, considering that David came in (sixth), and then Breckany was two behind him,” Sharp said. “I think all of that shows a great will of engaged community members who very much understand that we are not anti-growth, not anti-progress, and just for caring about our town in a really responsible, measured way.”
As the work starts next year, Sharp said she would like to see changes in the political tone and how town government conducts itself.
“I want us to move forward in a way that we all look around and are so proud of ourselves, that we did the most creative, most interesting, smartest thing to solve all of these problems, instead of just jumping on something that we’ve heard other people doing that may or may not work,” she said.
This story was originally published November 8, 2023 at 3:18 PM with the headline "2 Chapel Hill candidates ran together for council. One won the final count by 6 votes.."
