RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Copland Rudolph cast a ballot in the November election, just as she has for years, and her vote counted on a long list of North Carolina contests that were settled shortly afterward.
Nearly three months later, she still isn’t sure it will count for one of the higher races – a seat on the state Supreme Court.
Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin is still trying to overturn the result, even after two post-race votes showed Democratic Associate Justice Allison Riggs narrowly winning the election. Riggs remains on the court as the legal battles play out.
Litigation in state and federal court was expected to decide the outcome of Griffin’s efforts to cast some 66,000 ballots. If the legal challenge is successful, Griffin’s lawyers say it would likely result in him claiming the seat. This would expand the High Court’s current 5-2 conservative majority.
Rudolph is among the voters whose ballots are being challenged by Griffin and who could be disenfranchised, and she’s not content about it. Her message to Griffin is clear: Stop the games and admit the race.
“It’s annoying,” said Rudolph, 57, who runs an education foundation in Asheville. “These votes were counted. They were told. Mathematics has no doubt. “
Trying to undo a “free and fair” election
Democrats, voting rights activists and good government groups say Griffin’s actions and support for her by the GOP are an affront to democracy. The votes on the challenging ballots were otherwise used to determine the outcome of every other top race in North Carolina last fall.
While the Associated Press has declared 4,436 winners in the November election, with four candidates headed to runoff elections, the North Carolina Supreme Court is just one of four races statewide that remain undecided.
Griffin’s critics say his refusal to accept defeat is a blatant attempt to override the will of voters and broader partisan interests. His legal arguments, if successful, could serve as a road map for the GOP to overturn future elections in other states.
“The eyes of the entire country are on this race because the impact of free and fair elections being questioned and potentially overturned is devastating,” Roy Cooper, the former Democratic governor of North Carolina, told reporters this month.
The legal dispute comes against the backdrop of another maneuver by state Republicans who criticized an undemocratic decline in power. Last month, Republican lawmakers in the Legislature used their then-supermajority to override Cooper’s veto of a bill to sign many of today’s powers. Josh Stein and other statewide Democratic officials.
The battle in the nation’s ninth most populous state over the Supreme Court seat is being considered in two court systems. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments Monday on whether federal or state courts should hear the case.
The state Supreme Court this week declined to grant Griffin’s request for the justices to pursue a decision on whether the ballots should be counted or removed from the final tally. They said Griffin’s appeal of decisions last month by the State Board of Elections that rejected his ballots would have to go through a court process first.
Part of a broader legal strategy ahead of the election
Riggs leads Griffin by just 734 votes out of more than 5.5 million ballots. Her team says Griffin is trying to overturn an election after the fact by removing ballots and violating voters’ rights, and that he should have admitted a long time ago.
“I am disappointed that the door has been opened to drag this out for so long,” Riggs said in a news release last week. “I will continue to ensure that the more than 65,000 voters Griffin is trying to ignite have their voices heard.”
Griffin has declined comment on the litigation, saying it would violate the state’s code of judicial conduct.
On election night. Griffin led Riggs by about 10,000 votes, but that lead switched to Riggs as provisional and absentee ballot totals.
Republicans had already signaled they might move into tight North Carolina post-election races when they filed numerous lawsuits before the election, a tactic the GOP has used in other states over the past year. Their lawsuits in North Carolina focused in part on registration and residency issues now included in Griffin’s protests.
“Election boards do not have the authority to ignore and exceed the state constitution or state law,” state GOP Chairman Jason Simmons said recently on the social platform X.
No evidence that any of the voters are incompetent
Just over 60,000 of the challenged ballots came from voters whose registration records were missing a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number, which election officials have been required to collect since 2004. This group even includes Riggs’ parents.
Griffin’s lawyers say the registrations are incomplete and blame the state board for having registration forms that don’t specifically require any of those numbers for years. But lawyers for Riggs and the state board say there are many legitimate reasons the numbers are missing. In any case, critics of the challenges say it’s not the voters’ fault.
Griffin has provided no evidence that any of the registered voters are ineligible, according to legal complaints filed by Riggs and the state board. The briefs also said removing their ballots violates federal law.
Griffin’s legal strategy has recently focused more on 5,500 ballots from what his lawyers describe as overseas voters who are not offering copies of photo identification like other voters are required to do. Lawyers for Riggs and the campaign have told the justices that many of the ballots that fall into that category were cast by military personnel and that state and federal law does not require any of those voters to show identification.
The State Board of Elections, where three of the five members are Democrats, dismissed Griffin’s protests last month along mostly partisan lines, but the state Supreme Court on Jan. 7 blocked certification of a Riggs victory, at least for now.
All other races in the state have been certified and likely would not be affected by Griffin’s challenges, even if the courts sided with him and found that thousands of ballots should not have been counted. The ballots Griffin is challenging were missing ballots or those that were occupied during early in-person voting.
A fundamental right in danger
As the cases unfold, Democrats and election lawyers are on a media offensive to preserve Riggs’ victory in a swing state where Republican Donald Trump won the presidential race, but Democrats have won victories in the most prominent statewide offices. They put up anti-Griffin billboards and held demonstrations.
On a recent day, a political group called the “Can’t Win Victory Fund” was located across the street from the state Supreme Court building and spent the day reading the names of voters whose ballots Griffin is trying to throw out.
Even a conservative group focused on improving voter confidence in elections has begun airing a television ad criticizing the challenges.
Dawn Baldwin Gibson, an African-American pastor and school administrator from Pamlico County, was told her ballot was being questioned.
Gibson, a registered voter who is not affiliated with any party, remembers her grandfather telling her that “voting made you fundamentally American.” Now election officials couldn’t explain to her why someone would question her vote.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” she said.
