Common Cause of NC's Ann Webb on the latest in unsettled Riggs/Griffin Supreme Court election
It's hard to believe, but it's now been nearly six months since the November 2024 election and one race remains officially undecided – the contest for an associate justice seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court. Two recounts have confirmed that incumbent Justice Allison Riggs was the narrow victor, but remarkably, challenger Jefferson Griffin refuses to concede and continues to pursue the audacious strategy of seeking to have thousands of ballots – ballots cast according to the rules in effect on Election Day – thrown out.
The challenge has led to multiple lawsuits and numerous state and federal court rulings and recently, in order to try and get a handle on where things stand, what's at stake and what might happen next, NC Newsline's Rob Schofield caught up with one of our state's top good government champions, Common Cause of North Carolina Policy Director, Ann Webb.
Click here for the full interview with Common Cause of North Carolina Policy Director Ann Webb.
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Boston Globe
9 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Trump vows to change how elections are run. The US Constitution doesn't give him that power.
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The same post also pushed falsehoods about voting. He claimed the U.S. is the only country to use mail voting, when it's actually used by dozens, including Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Advertisement Similar complaints to Trump's, when aired on conservative and conservative-leaning networks such as Newsmax and Fox News, have led to multimillion dollar defamation settlements, including one announced Monday, because they are full of false information and the outlets have not been able to present any evidence to support them. Trump's post came after the president told Fox News that Russian President Vladimir Putin, in their Friday meeting in Alaska, echoed his grievances about mail voting and the 2020 election. Trump continued his attack on mail voting and voting machines in the Oval Office on Monday, during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Advertisement The announcement signals yet another way that Trump intends to stack the cards in his favor in the 2026 midterm elections, after he already has directed his attorney general to investigate a Democratic fundraising platform and urged states to redraw their congressional districts to help the GOP maintain its majority in the House of Representatives. Here's a breakdown of Trump's latest election post and why Congress is the one entity that can implement national election rules. Trump's post Trump for years has promoted false information about voting, and Monday was no exception. He claimed there is 'MASSIVE FRAUD' due to mail voting, when in fact voting fraud in the U.S. is rare. As an example, an Associated Press review after the 2020 election found fewer than 475 cases of potential fraud in the six battleground states where he disputed his loss, far too few to tip that election to Trump. Washington and Oregon, which conduct elections entirely by mail, have sued to challenge Trump's earlier executive order — which sought to require that all ballots must be received by Election Day and not just postmarked by then. The states argue that the president has no such authority, and they are seeking a declaration from a federal judge in Seattle that their postmark deadlines do not conflict with federal law setting the date of U.S. elections. Trump also alleged that voting machines are more expensive than 'Watermark Paper.' That's a little-used system that has gained favor and investments among some voting conspiracy theorists who believe it would help prevent fraudulent ballots from being introduced into the vote count. Watermarks would not provide a way to count ballots, so they would not on their own replace vote tabulating machines. Advertisement While some jurisdictions still have voters use electronic ballot-marking devices to cast their votes, the vast majority of voters in the U.S. already vote on paper ballots, creating an auditable record of votes that provides an extra safeguard for election security. In his post, Trump also claimed that states 'are merely an 'agent' for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes' and must do what the federal government 'as represented by the President of the United States' tells them to do. Election lawyers said that's a misrepresentation of the U.S. Constitution. It also flies in the face of what had been a core Republican Party value of prioritizing states' rights. Thousands of elections, none under presidential control Unlike in most countries, elections in the U.S. are run by the states. But it gets more complicated — each state then allows smaller jurisdictions, such as counties, cities or townships, to run their own elections. Election officials estimate there are as many as 10,000 different election jurisdictions across the country. A frequent complaint of Trump and other election conspiracy theorists is that the U.S. doesn't run its election like France, which hand counts presidential ballots and usually has a national result on election night. But that's because France is only running that single election, and every jurisdiction has the same ballot with no other races. A ballot in the U.S. might contain dozens of races, from president on down to city council and including state and local ballot measures. Advertisement The Constitution makes the states the entities that determine the 'time, place and manner' of elections, but does allow Congress to 'make' or 'alter' rules for federal elections. Congress can change the way states run congressional and presidential elections but has no say in the way a state runs its own elections. The president is not mentioned at all in the Constitution's list of entities with powers over elections. 'The president has very limited to zero authority over things related to the conduct of elections,' said Rick Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Courts have agreed — no presidential involvement Parts of Trump's earlier executive order on elections were swiftly blocked by the courts, on the grounds that Congress, and not the president, sets federal election rules. It's unclear what Trump plans to do now, but the only path to change federal election rules is through Congress. Although Republicans control Congress, it's unclear that even his party would want to eliminate voting machines nationwide, possibly delaying vote tallies in their own races by weeks or months. Even if they did, legislation would likely be unable to pass because Democrats could filibuster it in the U.S. Senate. Mail voting had bipartisan support before Trump turned against it during the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election, but it's still widely used in Republican-leaning states, including several he won last November — Arizona, Florida and Utah. It's also how members of the military stationed overseas cast their ballots, and fully eliminating it would disenfranchise those GOP-leaning voters. The main significance of Trump's Monday statement is that it signals his continuing obsession with trying to change how elections are run. Advertisement 'These kinds of claims could provide a kind of excuse for him to try to meddle,' Hasen said. 'Very concerned about that.' Associated Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed to this report.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
Tarrant County considers cutting number of voting locations in November election
This Election Day, polling locations could be one-third of what was available to voters four years ago. Early voting sites could be halved. Tarrant County Commissioners will consider cutting the number of voting locations for the Nov. 4, 2025, constitutional amendment election and the special election to decide the Senate District 9 representative. During the 2021 November constitutional amendment election, voters had 48 polling locations available to them for early voting and 323 sites for Election Day voting. In 2023, the early voting sites decreased to 44, but Election Day locations increased to 330. Oftentimes, these elections don't draw large crowds. For example, in 2023 only 12.48% of registered voters cast their ballots. Five sites had fewer than 300 people come to vote throughout the early voting period. At their 10 a.m. meeting Tuesday, the commissioners could slice those numbers down to 24 early voting locations and 214 Election Day sites. Though there would be fewer overall, the locations are still dispersed evenly throughout the county. Democratic Commissioner Alisa Simmons, of Arlington, has posted on social media calling for residents to speak out against this proposal at the meeting. 'This isn't about logistics or cost saving; Republicans have to cheat to win and try to stay in power,' Simmons said in a TikTok video. 'It's about silencing minority voters, young voters, first-time voters, senior citizens and working voters. They were hoping you wouldn't notice.' She said this proposal removes all college voting sites — an idea shot down by the commissioners court in 2024. Fort Worth council member Mia Hall also alerted the public of the potential change, saying it would leave Lake Como, Southside and Northside neighborhoods without a nearby early voting location. The closest one would be in downtown Fort Worth. 'While I understand the pressures of state regulations and budgetary constraints, disenfranchising entire communities is not an acceptable response,' Hall said in a release. 'The scale of these proposed closures is too extreme and risks setting a troubling precedent for future elections.' County Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig did not respond to the Star-Telegram's questions about the decrease in polling locations. Tracey Knight, chief of staff for Republican Commissioner Manny Ramirez of Fort Worth, said his office has not received an explanation from Ludwig about why the proposal was placed on the agenda or why the specific sites were chosen. 'Commissioner Ramirez looks forward to Clint's presentation and a full discussion in court tomorrow,' Knight said via email. Solve the daily Crossword
USA Today
19 hours ago
- USA Today
Zelenskyy's White House re-do
Hello!Rebecca Morin Erin is forecast to steer clearof the mainland United States. I'm thinking of all those who are affected in the Caribbean, such as those in Puerto Rico. Zelenskyy back at the White House Now, it's Ukraine's turn. President Donald Trump on Monday afternoon is meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss a potential peace deal with Russia, just days after Trump held an hourslong meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska. Before the Washington meetings, Trump railed at critics of his recent summit with Putin, where he shifted his position on a Ukraine ceasefire to align with that of the Russian president. He also put the onus on Zelenskyy to end Russia's assault on his country and ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine. Follow the latest updates from Trump's meeting with Zelenskyy. Don't forget about Europe: Trump is also set to meet with European leaders, who are rallying behind Zelenskyy and hope to move Trump away from Putin's conditions for a peace deal. European leaders also participated Sunday in an emergency virtual meeting of the Coalition of the Willing, the group of countries that have offered to provide security guarantees to Ukraine after the war. See which European leaders will meet with Trump. Trump-Putin's meeting: The red carpets were rolled out. The two leaders shook hands. A roughly three-hour long meeting was had. And still, no peace deal. Trump and Putin held a roughly three hour long summit in Alaska, where the two did not come to an agreement to end the war in Ukraine. Key takeaways from the Trump-Putin summit. Documents left behind: Watch where you print. Government documents with details about meeting schedules and seating charts, as well as an extravagant menu and reminder to pronounce Putin's name "POO-tihn," were accidentally left in a hotel printer in Alaska amid Trump's meeting with the Russian leader. The documents with State Department markings, reported by NPR, were discovered in the printer in an Anchorage hotel around 9 a.m., hours before Trump's summit with Putin at a nearby military base. See what the documents said. A politics pit stop No more mail-in voting? Trump on Monday said he would sign an executive order to abolish mail-in voting, a move he said Putin supported. Mailing ballots is a popular option for voters to avoid waiting in line at polling places on Election Day. Election-security officials say voting has never been more secure and that the president has no role overseeing elections. But Trump has long railed against mail-in voting as vulnerable to fraud – despite election experts, including those in his first administration, who said mail-in voting is secure. What to know about Trump's plan. Texas standoff over Texas, we're heading home. Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives returned to Austin Monday morning after leaving the state two weeks ago in protest of a Republican plan to re-draw congressional maps to help the party gain seats in 2026. The protest temporarily blocked House Republicans from having a quorum to move the redistricting plan forward and drew national attention to Trump's effort to avoid losing the Republican majority in Congress next year. Republicans adjourned its first special session in the state House on Thursday. Democrats refused to return to the state until after that first special session. California's plans to redraw its state congressional maps also prompted Texas Democrats' return. Got a burning question, or comment, for On Politics?You can submit them here or send me an email atrdmorin@
