In the latest twist in a prolonged legal battle over a North Carolina judicial seat, the State Supreme Court ruled on Friday that thousands of voters must fix issues with their ballots or risk having them tossed. The decision partially upheld a lower-court ruling and could lead to the November election being overturned.
Military and overseas voters who did not provide an ID when casting an absentee ballot — which one justice estimated to be 2,000 to 7,000 voters — will have 30 days to fix any issues, the court ruled.
But the court also ruled that roughly 60,000 ballots — from voters who, through no fault of their own, had information missing in their registration — must be counted.
The case, over a seat on the very same Supreme Court, has tested the boundaries of post-election litigation and drawn criticism from democracy watchdog groups, liberals and even some conservatives across the state, who worry about a dangerous precedent being set. Though the court protected the largest category of voters whose eligibility was being challenged, the number of ballots that remain in question exceeds the slim margin by which the Democratic incumbent won.
The 4-to-2 decision on Friday was in response to a plea from the Democratic incumbent, Justice Allison Riggs. She had challenged a state appeals court decision last week requiring roughly 65,000 North Carolina voters to verify their eligibility within a 15-day window or have their ballots tossed. Many of the affected voters live in Democratic-leaning counties.
Justice Riggs is one of two Democrats on the seven-member Supreme Court, and has recused herself from the case. Two recounts by the State Board of Elections reaffirmed that she won the November election by 734 votes, but her Republican opponent, Judge Jefferson Griffin, has contested the result. He is currently a judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals.
Judge Griffin has argued that about 60,000 voters were ineligible to vote because they had not supplied certain required ID when they registered — even though the omission was possibly because of administrative errors. The state’s Republican Party has stood firmly behind his challenge, and the race is the only 2024 statewide election in the nation that remains uncertified.
On Friday, the State Supreme Court said that “mistakes made by negligent election officials in registering citizens who are otherwise eligible to vote” cannot be the sole basis for depriving a citizen of his or her right to vote, and that those 60,000 votes must be counted.
For the military and overseas voters, state law requires providing ID to cast an absentee ballot, but the State Board of Elections had exempted such voters from the requirement. Judge Griffin challenged that decision.
That exemption was made because the portal that overseas and military voters use to cast ballots does not have a way to provide photo identification. In 2023, the board unanimously approved a rule to exempt them from complying with the ID law. The rule was then approved by the rules commission of the Republican-controlled state legislature.
The State Supreme Court also ruled on Friday that the nearly 300 “Never Residents” voters — those who have never lived in North Carolina but are registered to vote there — should have their ballots tossed out because they were ineligible to cast them. These voters typically include the children of military parents who turn 18 while their family is stationed abroad, or missionaries, according to voting rights experts.
A bipartisan state law passed in 2011 says that such people are allowed to vote in North Carolina. But the ruling on Friday disagreed, citing the State Constitution.
The possibility of the results of the November election being overturned drew the attention of Justice Anita Earls, the other Democratic justice on the State Supreme Court. In a lengthy partial dissent, Justice Earls accused the court of making a “surgical” ruling that still targeted Democrats, and warned that voiding ballots so far out from an election could have lasting consequences for American democracy.
“Whether by overkill or surgically targeted, the attack on democratic principles is equally fatal,” she wrote. “And even if, defying all odds, sufficient numbers of those voters are contacted and do provide photocopies of their passports or other acceptable identification documents by email or mail within the deadline such that the ultimate outcome of the election is not altered, the precedent for the complete disruption of the election process by losing candidates has been set.”
Justice Richard Dietz, a Republican who dissented from the majority, wrote that the case cried out for a decisive rejection of “judicial tampering in election results.”
“Even if the federal courts ultimately reverse the court of appeals,” Justice Dietz wrote, “the door is open for losing candidates to try this sort of post-election meddling in state court in the future. We should not allow that.”
Within hours of Friday’s ruling, Justice Riggs appealed the decision to federal court.
In February, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that if the federal legal questions in the case remained unresolved by state proceedings, the case could continue at the federal level. In her appeal, Justice Riggs asked the court to consider “the federal issues remaining after resolution of the state court proceedings.”
In a statement posted to social media, Justice Riggs applauded the decision to count the 60,000 votes but was critical of the decision regarding military and overseas voters.
“It is unacceptable that the court is choosing to selectively disenfranchise North Carolinians serving our country, here and overseas,” she said.
In a court filing before Friday’s decision, Judge Griffin’s lawyers had argued that the State Supreme Court should not hear the case: “This litigation has drawn on long enough. The cure process, rather than more courthouse battles, is the pathway for restoring integrity in this election.”
Paul Shumaker, a veteran Republican strategist in Raleigh, N.C., who consulted Judge Griffin during his campaign, said in an interview that Friday’s opinion “changes nothing for us.”
“The court is basically doing what Griffin asked,” Mr. Shumaker said.
For weeks, the North Carolina Democratic Party has already been preparing to launch a large-scale voter contact program to make sure all ballots are counted. It has started a Protect the Vote effort, calling on party members and volunteers to join the fight, and started a new website for the cause. One video meeting last week had 2,000 attendees, party officials said.
Justice Riggs revamped her website last week, adding a link to a list of all the voters who are presumably being challenged by Judge Griffin.
In a statement on Friday, Anderson Clayton, the chairwoman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, said: “Republicans are surgically targeting military voters from six counties and forcing them to re-prove themselves or be disenfranchised.”
Matt Mercer, the spokesman for the North Carolina Republican Party, said in a statement that “the decision today brings this election one step closer to a conclusion ensuring every legal vote will be counted.”
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