North Carolina elections board dismisses challenges against 60,000 votes

RALEIGH, N.C. (CN) — The North Carolina Board of Elections on Wednesday dismissed Republican candidates’ formal election protests challenging the results of their close-margin elections last month.

The challenges included more than 60,000 votes. North Carolina Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin, who ran for a state Supreme Court seat, two state Senate candidates and a representative running for reelection in the state House brought the challenges.

Griffin trailed his opponent, Supreme Court Associate Justice Allison Riggs, by 734 votes. Griffin had maintained a lead over Riggs for several days after the election, before Riggs came ahead after counties finalized counting absentee and provisional ballots. Riggs has held on to her lead through two recounts requested by Griffin.

The protests challenged votes cast overseas, as the state board did not require those voters to provide a copy of their photo ID, despite North Carolina’s new photo ID law. Candidates also challenged the ballots of adult children of citizens who have never lived in the U.S., but whose parents formerly resided in North Carolina, as well as ballots cast by residents who filled out a registration form that didn’t require them to provide a driver’s license number or last four digits of their social security number.

Griffen argued those voters should be required to provide that information to confirm their voter eligibility, or have their ballots discarded.

“We filed these protests because we believe the winners of these elections should be determined by eligible voters, and only eligible voters,” said attorney Craig Schauer, representing Griffin and parties who filed the protests in front of the board Wednesday.

The candidates raised three other types of election protests that were left in the jurisdiction of the county board. They argued felons with an incomplete sentence voted, that ballots cast by voters who died before Election Day were counted and that non-registered voters cast ballots.

Griffin mailed postcards to the disputed voters, with a QR code that linked to lists of election protests in varying counties. But as many of those postcards were addressed to “current resident,” they may have been discarded, Riggs claimed. Thus, Democratic elections board members decided that the affected voters did not receive the required legal notice.

Board members voted along party lines on three of the motions to dismiss, 3-2, with Democrats holding the majority.

Griffin has ten days to appeal the board’s decision. If he doesn’t, his race will be certified.

The North Carolina Republican Party pushed back against the decision.

“The most partisan State Board of Elections in history has once again failed the people of North Carolina,” said North Caroline Republican Party Chairman Jason Simmons. “The board’s continued efforts to engineer political outcomes for Democrats is shameful. We will review the board’s decision and reserve the right to any future actions to protect the integrity of our elections.”

Griffin had requested that board member Siobhan O’Duffy Millen recuse herself from participating in discussions concerning the election protests, as her husband is a partner at the firm representing Riggs in the election process. The motion failed, with board chair Alan Hirsch saying Millen’s husband does not participate in any of the law firm’s work that pertains to the elections board.

Griffin began challenging the results of his race before election results even came in, suing the state board preemptively over the timeliness of record requests. He also filed petitions in both state court and the court of appeals on Friday, asking that courts force the board’s hand and require it to come to a decision on his protests more quickly. Both courts declined to do so.

In response to the protests, the North Carolina Democratic Party also sued, claiming that should the board of elections invalidate ballots post-election, it would be conducting illegal post-election voter roll maintenance.

A partial hand-eye-recount in Griffin’s election concluded Tuesday, finding that Griffin failed to pick up the necessary number of votes required to request a full hand recount of ballots.

Candidates are expected to pick up votes during hand-eye recounts, as ballot tabulators cannot read ballots that are not marked correctly. Griffin received an additional 56 votes, while his opponent, Allison Riggs, gained 70 votes. This was the second recount in the race.

“Judge Griffin’s attack on these votes was an unprecedented attempt to overturn the verdict already delivered by North Carolinian voters: they chose Justice Allison Riggs to continue serving on the North Carolina Supreme Court,” said Embry Owen, campaign manager for Riggs. Owen called on Griffin to concede.

State Senate candidates Ashlee Adams, Stacie McGinn and Representative Frank Sossamon also filed election protests.

A representative for Griffin’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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