Atkinson wins unresolved N.C. superintendent race
After nine months of legal wrangling, Democrat June Atkinson won the nation’s last unresolved statewide election from November 2004. And it only took the first legislative vote of its kind in nearly 200 years to confirm that she is North Carolina’s new superintendent of public instruction. Her first day on the job was Wednesday.
Her Republican opponent, Bill Fletcher, challenged the outcome — an Atkinson win by more than 8,000 votes — by contesting approximately 11,000 ballots cast in the wrong precincts.
A historic joint Senate-House session last week fulfilled a rarely exercised constitutional duty to decide contested statewide races.
