RED SPRINGS — The Robeson County Board of Elections deferred the Red Springs mayoral results to the State Board of Elections for further review.
The current tally shows Caroline Sumpter with 360 votes and Duron Burney with 358, with four write-in ballots also cast. The election-night count on Nov. 4 had Sumpter with a three-vote lead at 352 to 349; provisional ballots were added on Nov. 7, with 10 for Burney and 8 for Sumpter, pulling the margin to one vote, before the county board discovered during canvassing that one ballot was accidentally counted twice, creating the current two-vote difference.
Burney, who challenged the results, alleged that 19 votes from Red Springs Assisted Living had been filled out with staff assistance, thereby invalidating the absentee ballots…