North Carolina’s state Supreme Court soap opera continues
There was promising election news from North Carolina on Tuesday. Project 2025’s predations continue apace, DOGE continues its Long March through government agencies, and President Donald Trump may appear any day with a generalissimo’s epaulets atop his ill-fitting suits. But prospects for stopping a Republican election theft of a Supreme Court race in North Carolina brightened (WFAE):
The North Carolina Board of Elections said in a court filing Tuesday that only 1,675 voters will be impacted by Republican Jefferson Griffin’s challenge against Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs for a seat on the state Supreme Court.
The board said it will require 1,409 overseas voters in Guilford County to provide photo ID within 30 days for their ballot to count. Griffin had challenged Guilford voters, as well as overseas voters in three other Democratic-leaning counties.
But the Democratic-controlled state elections board said it will only require Guilford voters to provide ID, since Griffin’s challenge of that county’s overseas voters was his only protest completed in time, as required by state law.
Griffin will appeal the Board’s following black-letter state law on the filing deadline. But win or lose, consider this GOP election-stealing effort a shakedown cruise for challenging election losses near you. If you live in a red or purple state with a GOP-majority state Supreme Court, you could see this in coming elections.
To recap, after two recounts, Riggs led Griffin by 734 votes. Griffin refused to concede. He filed challenges to over 60,000 votes, alleging based on the digital records that most were from improperly registered voters, another 5,500 military and overseas absentee votes were invalid for not including photo IDs, and another couple of hundred were invalid votes from so-called “never residents.” Griffin challenged votes from four of North Carolina’s largest, bluest counties.
Last Friday, the state Supreme Court dismissed the 60,000 registration challenges, but instructed the appeals court to work out the details on the remainder with the state Board of Elections.
Now the Board has informed the U.S. District Court that the remaining federal challenges will be limited to the only county where Griffin filed his challenge by the deadline. This leaves only 1,675 votes in question: 1,409 overseas and military votes from Guilford County, and the votes (statewide) from perhaps 266 “never residents.”
But wait. Popular Information and Anderson Alerts researched the “never resident” votes and published a report on Monday that many voters on Griffin’s challenge list actually live or lived in the state. Some previously voted in person in North Carolina:
Overall, Popular Information and Anderson Alerts identified 29 people — through voting records, publicly available information, and interviews — whose votes were discarded who have lived or currently live in North Carolina. There were numerous others who also appear to be erroneously included on the list, but whose history could not be definitively established. These errors are particularly harmful because the North Carolina Supreme Court did not give impacted voters any opportunity to prove their eligibility.
How would these people end up on a list of people who never resided in North Carolina? According to Gerry Cohen, a member of the Wake County Board of Elections, the people ended up on Griffin’s list by filling out a Federal Post Card Application for an absentee ballot and checking the box that read, “I am a U.S. citizen living outside the country, I have never lived in the United States.”
It is possible that some voters checked that box in error. (In an interview, one voter confirmed they had checked the box by mistake.) In other cases, there could be an error in the records kept by the North Carolina Election Board. But either way, it does not make these voters “never residents” or invalidate their ballots.
The Board in its filing Tuesday referenced these reports and pledged to replicate its procedures for validating “never resident” absentee voters. The Board will instruct county boards to review submitted forms to verify that voters did indeed check the “never lived” box. Next, they must “review the voter’s registration record and voter history record to ensure that the voter in question does not have a record of registering previously or voting previously under a claim of residency in the county.”
Having voted in person or absentee before or before would “show that the challenged voter attested, under penalty of perjury, to having resided within the county during a prior election.” They would thus fall outside the scope of Griffin’s “never resident” challenge. Local Boards will mail remaining voters to inform them of the challenge and give them 30 days “to submit a sworn affidavit stating that they have resided in the county and identifying their prior residence address.”
This filing will, of course, infuriate Griffin. He will challenge the Board’s proposed course of action. But his late filing on the other counties is not a mistake other GOP losers will make next time, perhaps in your state.
But the clock is ticking on the current makeup of the State Board of Elections. The lame-duck legislature moved authority over elections from the governor to the (Republican) state Auditor. The Auditor’s authority to appoint new Board of Elections members begins on May 1. If the current Board’s plan for limiting the scope of Griffin’s challenges somehow gets rejected, it could be a different Board with a Republican 3-2 split that will reformat the plan.
Riggs has already appealed the order by her state Supreme Court colleagues to federal court. She had recused but remains on the court until the election dispute is settled. This isn’t over.
Republicans are relentless.
Update: I want to repeat for those who missed it, Griffin has provided no evidence of anyone voting illegally. His challenges are based on mere allegations backed up by the kind of shoddy digital data scrapings common among proponents of voter fraud. Popular Information and Anderson Alerts showed that up as garbage. Instead of Griffin having to back up his illegal voting charges (as required by law, IIRC), he demands that thousands of voters he’s challenging prove they voted legally.
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