The GOP-controlled North Carolina State Supreme Court docket on Tuesday blocked certification of liberal justice Allison Riggs’ 2024 victory, permitting the Republican who misplaced the race to current his argument about why 60,000 ballots forged within the race must be thrown out.
Riggs, an incumbent on the courtroom, defeated Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin by 748 votes—a slender victory that was affirmed by two recounts.
However Griffin is refusing to concede and as an alternative needs the courtroom to throw out 60,000 ballots based mostly on a ridiculous declare that these voters had been illegally registered. Griffin claims these voters didn’t put their Social Safety or driver’s license numbers on their voter registration kinds, rendering their votes invalid.
State and nationwide Republicans used that very same argument to attempt to purge 225,000 voters from the rolls in North Carolina earlier than ballots had been forged within the 2024 election. However each the State Board of Elections and a federal choose dominated towards the Republicans in that case.
Now Griffin needs the courtroom to retroactively disqualify voters—a lot of them Democratic—in order that he could be declared the winner of a race he misplaced.
The argument Griffin is making is so excessive that even election deniers suppose it’s flawed, in line with a December report by the investigative information outlet ProPublica.
From the ProPublica report:
The speculation Griffin is citing originated with a right-wing activist, Carol Snow, who described herself to ProPublica in an e mail as “a Bona Fide Grade-A Election Denier.” Snow promoted it with the assistance of the state chapter of the Election Integrity Community, a nationwide group whose chief labored with President Donald Trump in his failed effort to overturn the 2020 election. The community additionally was behind in depth efforts to arrange to contest a Trump loss this 12 months in different states, as ProPublica has reported, in addition to in North Carolina, in line with beforehand unreported recordings and transcripts of conferences of the state chapter.
State election officers have discovered that lacking data on a voter’s registration isn’t disqualifying as a result of there are quite a few legitimate causes for the state’s database to lack … these particulars.
These causes embrace voters registering earlier than state paperwork was up to date a few 12 months in the past to require that data or utilizing alternate authorized paperwork, corresponding to a utility invoice, to confirm their identities. What’s extra, voters should nonetheless show their identification when casting a poll—most frequently with a driver’s license.
If the Republican-controlled state Supreme Court docket guidelines in Griffin’s favor, they are going to be stealing a seat that Democrats rightfully received.
“This is extremely concerning,” Carolina Forward, a progressive think tank in North Carolina, wrote in a put up on X. “NC Republicans could be preparing to actually nullify a valid election, simply because it didn’t go their way. Even in North Carolina, and even in these times, this is a massive escalation and a frontal assault on our state’s basic democracy.”
A whole bunch of individuals rallied with Riggs on Sunday to attract consideration to the GOP effort to steal the state Supreme Court docket seat she received.
Christy Clausell, an unaffiliated voter who has been registered within the state since 2012, is without doubt one of the 60,000 individuals whose ballots Griffin is attempting to throw out.
“I’ve never been targeted in any dirty political scheme, but this feels very much like that,” Clausell mentioned on the occasion, in line with a report from NC Newsline.
Clausell added, “I definitely don’t want anyone representing me on our state’s highest court who exercises blatantly dishonorable tactics to get what they want versus serving the people who vote for them.”
