McCrory not running for any office in 2024, state attributes candidate list error to local elections worker
Hours before the start of candidate filing Monday, the North Carolina State Board of Elections updated its candidate list to correct a mistake made by the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections.
Former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory isn’t running for local county commissioner seat in 2024, he told me Monday morning, nor are any of five other candidates the state listed for a Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners seat.
According to the North Carolina State Board of Elections, a Mecklenburg County Board of Elections employee made a mistake during training, which worked its way into the NCSBE’s candidate list.
“In preparations for candidate filing, an employee at the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections used the wrong data site for candidate filing training,” said a statement from Pat Gannon, a spokesman for the state elections board. “This resulted in test data showing up in the first candidate lists published on the State Board website. These lists should not have had any candidates in them, and the test data has since been removed. Candidate filing begins at noon today, and candidate lists will be updated routinely throughout the filing period, which ends at noon on Friday, December 15.”
The mistake appeared on the state elections board website for nearly 24 hours. Neither McCrory nor any of the five other wrongly listed candidates remained on the website Monday morning. Candidate filing begins at noon.
McCrory said he won’t be running for any political office in 2024 and is serving as a volunteer national co-chair of the No Labels Party alongside former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan. No Labels is exploring presidential alternatives to Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
“Bad mistake or a bad joke, [the Board of Elections] has not notified me,” McCrory said in a statement, adding that he hopes some Republicans do run for local office.
“[We] need some political diversity In Mecklenburg County,” McCrory said.
McCrory unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate last year. Before that, he served as governor from 2013 to 2016 and as mayor of Charlotte from 1995 to 2009.