The Dare County Board of Elections met at 10 a.m. to conduct a state-required sample audit of machine counts from two randomly selected precincts, including the Town of Duck, and confirmed the hand tally matched the machine tape.

Board Chair (Speaker 1) opened the meeting and moved immediately into the audit, and Director (Speaker 4) told the board: "This is a state required sample audit of the machine counts that is done, after every election." The director said staff formed two bipartisan teams to perform a caller/observer and two tallyer method for the Duck contest because that precinct had no mayor race and required tallying the full council contest and write-ins.

Teams called ballots from the stack and used two independent tallyers with audible tallies every five counts so the board could follow along. Staff encountered routine procedural issues — several write-ins, some underfilled ovals that required closer inspection, and the team adjusted its approach early in the count to ensure consistency.

After running subtotals, staff reported per-candidate hand counts and compared them to the machine tape. Director (Speaker 4) confirmed the match: "So that matches the tape." The tally summarized the principal candidates and write-ins: among the Duck contest tallies read aloud during reconciliation, the team reported counts such as Brynn Chasen +151, Kevin Lingard +178, Mark Murray +174, Miriam Rollin +143, Monica Thibodeau +192, Sandy Whitman +151, and 11 write-ins; staff said those subtotals matched the tape and signed the tally sheets.

Staff also recorded undervotes/undercounted ballots encountered during the audit and noted 11 undervotes observed during reconciliation. Director and the board agreed to review the audit tape as part of documentation and to add any required notations to the official tally sheets.

The board was reminded that the canvas to certify results is scheduled for Friday at 11 a.m. and will be streamed on YouTube. Chair closed the audit portion by thanking the team: "Thank you for an awesome count. You all did a great job, and we really appreciate you being here today."