There’s been a lot of news recently in the contested race for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court, where Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs leads Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin by 734 votes. That margin has held up after two statewide recounts.
On Friday, the state Supreme Court — with Riggs having recused herself — issued a mixed ruling in the case. It allowed most challenged ballots to remain, but opened the door for enough ballots to be rejected for Griffin to win.
All Things Considered host Nick de la Canal spoke with WFAE’s Steve Harrison about the latest in what’s now the nation’s only undecided statewide race from November.
Nick de la Canal: Steve, let’s start with the biggest group of ballots — more than 60,000 that Griffin said should be rejected because he said they have incomplete registrations. Those are going to count, right?
Steve Harrison: They are, yes.
Griffin and his campaign have said the ballots should be rejected because their registrations lacked some required information, like the last four digits of their Social Security number. Those 60,000 people voted early, in person or by mail, and their ballots are retrievable. Griffin wanted to pull them out and reject them.
But in a 4-2 decision, the state’s highest court said they should be counted — even though four Republican justices harshly criticized the Democratic-controlled state Board of Elections for not fixing the problem earlier.
That’s a win for Riggs. But…
De la Canal: The court has said overseas ballots — many of them from members of the military — could be rejected because they didn’t include a photo ID with their ballot. What happens next for them?
Harrison: Griffin had challenged overseas voters in four very heavily Democratic counties — Guilford, Durham, Forsyth and Buncombe — because of the lack of photo ID. That’s about 5,500 voters.
The court said those challenged voters have 30 days to send in a copy of their ID. If they don’t, their ballots will be rejected. And there are a couple of questions with this decision.
One, the state board had decided before the election that overseas voters didn’t need to show ID.
And two, the Republican justices — Paul Newby, Phil Berger Jr., Tamara Barringer and Trey Allen — are not applying this new requirement to overseas voters in all 100 counties. They are just focusing on the Democratic ones that Griffin challenged.
Limiting the impacted voters to the ones Griffin challenged could mean there are enough ballots for him to overtake the lead.
Riggs spoke about this at a news conference this morning in Raleigh.
"Our Constitution demands equal protection and equal treatment under the law. Those who raise their hand and get first in line to serve our country should not now be first in line to have their votes tossed."
De la Canal: That’s Riggs. And what did the dissenting justices say?
Harrison: Because Riggs recused herself, there was only one Democratic justice considering the case: Anita Earls.
Earls wrote, “Some would call it stealing the election, others might call it a bloodless coup, but by whatever name, no amount of smoke and mirrors makes it legitimate.”
Earls had particularly harsh words for the court’s decision to only require the challenged overseas voters to provide a copy of their ID.
She wrote: “What is worse, these targeted voters are only those who happened to have registered in Guilford County, or maybe one of three or four other counties that vote heavily Democratic. The special order is not clear, but in any case, not every such voter in the state.”
She then said: “Explaining how that is fair, just, or consistent with fundamental legal principles is impossible, so the majority does not try.”
De la Canal: And one Republican justice, Richard Dietz, dissented. What did he say?
Harrison: He wrote that when Griffin first made his challenge after the election, he “expected that, when the time came, our state courts surely would embrace the universally accepted principle that courts cannot change election outcomes by retroactively rewriting the law.”
Then, for effect, he wrote: “I was wrong.”
De la Canal: And there is one other group of voters whose ballots are being rejected — The so-called "never residents"?
Harrison: Yes, there are roughly 270 voters that Griffin says have never lived in North Carolina who voted. In theory, these would be people who were born overseas, have lived overseas, and whose parents have North Carolina residency.
The court said their ballots should not count, even though the state has previously allowed them to vote here.
But Raleigh journalist Bryan Anderson has tracked down 16 of those voters on the list and has compelling evidence that they have lived in the state.
So it’s possible that the "never resident" list is wrong.
De la Canal: And what’s next for Riggs?
Harrison: On Friday, she filed an appeal in federal court. But District Judge Richard Myers said the Supreme Court’s order should move forward, but he ordered the state Board of Elections not to certify the final result — at least for now.
