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Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Disputed North Carolina race offers playbook for beaten candidates, experts warn
A disputed North Carolina state supreme court race that took nearly six months to resolve revealed a playbook for future candidates who lose elections to retroactively challenge votes, observers warn, but its ultimate resolution sent a signal that federal courts are unlikely to support an effort to overturn the results of an election. Democrat Allison Riggs defeated Republican Jefferson Griffin by 734 votes last November out of around 5.5m cast. But for months afterwards, Griffin waged an aggressive legal fight to get 65,000 votes thrown out after the election, even though those voters followed all of the rules election officials had set in advance. The effort was largely seen as a long shot until the North Carolina court of appeals accepted the challenge and said more than 60,000 voters had to prove their eligibility, months after the election, or have their votes thrown out. The Republican-controlled North Carolina supreme court significantly narrowed the number of people who had to prove their eligibility, but still left the door open to more than 1,000 votes being tossed. However, Judge Richard Myers II, a conservative federal judge appointed by Donald Trump, halted that effort on 5 May and ordered the North Carolina state board of elections to certify the race. 'You establish the rules before the game. You don't change them after the game is done,' he wrote in his ruling. Griffin shortly after said he would not appeal against the election and conceded the race. The North Carolina episode marked the most aggressive push by a Republican to overturn an election since Donald Trump's blunt push to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential race. While both efforts were unsuccessful, the North Carolina state court's embrace of such a brazen effort to disenfranchise voters after an election could set the stage for another candidate to try the same thing. 'The damage to future North Carolina elections has already been done,' Bryan Anderson, a North Carolina reporter who authors the Substack newsletter Anderson Alerts, warned. The North Carolina judges who had ruled in favor of Griffin, Anderson wrote, 'have issued decisions paving the way for retroactive voter challenges. It's a view that can't be put back in a box and stands to create little incentive for candidates to concede defeat in close elections going forward.' 'There's now also precedent for wrongly challenging voters who followed all rules in place at the time of an election and leaving them without any means to address concerns with their ballots,' he added. Although the North Carolina state board of elections was not willing to entertain Griffin's challenges in the future this time around, North Carolina Republicans wrestled control of the state elections board from Democrats, and might be more willing to entertain efforts to disenfranchise voters. Richard Hasen, an election law scholar at the University of California Los Angeles said the episode sent 'two conflicting signals, and it's hard to know which one is going to dominate'. On the one hand, he said Donald Trump has created an atmosphere in which Republicans are 'increasingly willing to believe' elections are being stolen and embrace efforts to overturn them. 'On the other hand, the fact that you have pushback, at least from the federal courts, should give some people pause,' he said. Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said he believed the saga 'closed the door' to similar challenges in the future. 'Certainly it is a shame that it took six months to get here, but the end result here is a reaffirmation of the fact that the federal courts aren't going to stand for changing the rules for an election after it's been run,' he said. 'Will other people try this? Maybe. But I think the lesson that should be learned from this is actually this won't work.' But Griffin's efforts may have 'only failed because the federal courts that oversee North Carolina happen to be free of partisan corruption', Mark Stern, a legal reporter, wrote in Slate. 'But what if a Republican candidate loses by a hair in, say, Texas, where state and federal courts are badly tainted by GOP bias,' he wrote. 'Griffin has laid out the blueprint for an election heist in such a scenario, with Scotus standing as the lone bulwark against an assault on democracy.' Although Republicans have been responsible for bringing election denialism into the mainstream in recent years, Benjamin Ginsberg, a well-respected Republican election lawyer who worked on George W Bush's team during the Florida recount in 2000, said the legal strategy Griffin deployed was essentially what Al Gore tried to do. 'That strategy has not worked, which is not to say somebody won't try it again. Because history would teach you that candidates who lose narrow races, try everything. Throw it on the wall and see what sticks,' he said.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
North Carolina election loser gains support to overturn results: ‘bad for democracy'
More than five months after the 2024 election, a swath of voters in North Carolina are still unsure whether their votes will count in an unprecedented effort to overturn a valid US election. Democrat Allison Riggs defeated Republican Jefferson Griffin in a contest for the state supreme court. But after the election, Griffin challenged the eligibility of tens of thousands of voters. A ruling from the North Carolina supreme court on Friday paved the way for as many as 1,675 voters to have their ballots thrown out in the election – more than double Riggs's margin of victory. The challenged voters include someone who grew up in the state, a professor who was there for two decades, a lifelong resident studying abroad, and someone who still owns a home there and plans to move back, according to Guardian interviews. But Griffin claims they are 'never-residents', people who voted in North Carolina who had no previous residency in or attachments to the state. The Guardian spoke with several voters, first identified by the publication Anderson Alerts with their list later expanded upon by Popular Information, who were all living overseas when they cast their ballots in the North Carolina state supreme court race. At risk are two groups: 1,409 overseas voters from Guilford county, a Democratic-leaning area, who voted without showing photo ID – something that the law allows. Then, there are 266 overseas voters whom Griffin alleges have never lived in North Carolina, according to the North Carolina state board of elections. The court gave 30 days for elections officials to get more information from the overseas voters. It said that the 266 voters suspected of never being residents in the state should have their ballots thrown out. That would mean that the vote cast by Josey Wright, a 25-year-old PhD student studying in the UK, wouldn't count. Wright lived in North Carolina from early childhood until age 18. Her parents still live there, and she visits most years, typically spending summers there. She voted from abroad using a web portal available to US citizens who now live overseas, as she has done in several local and national elections since she moved to the UK to study. She found out her vote may not be counted after a reporter contacted her in recent days. 'It's a bit frustrating because it's already a bit more difficult, I think, to vote as an overseas voter,' Wright said. 'You have to be paying attention to US elections and also submit quite a bit of paperwork in order to get your ballot and to sign up for the portal. It's a bit disheartening that, after all that effort, my vote actually might not be counted.' The legal battle has drawn attention nationwide and protests locally because the courts could potentially overturn Riggs's victory by changing the rules of election procedure after the election happened. It's a road map that election challengers in other states, and in much bigger contests, could use in the future, if it's successful. If Trump had lost North Carolina, he was expected to make similar arguments. The ruling also set off a scramble to figure out next steps for the unprecedented election challenge. There's confusion over how to find these voters, how to cure their ballots, and what next steps will look like. The state board of elections said in a court filing yesterday that these voters would be reviewed by elections officials to see whether they have claims of residency in North Carolina, and whether, if they were found to be one-time residents and otherwise valid, their ballots would count. Multiple lawsuits have been filed in federal court to stop the ruling from taking effect. Plaintiffs in one of the cases include a military spouse living in Italy who was born and raised in North Carolina; a lifelong resident who moved to Switzerland for her husband's PhD program who is in the process of moving back to the state; a North Carolinian teaching English abroad on a one-year contract and a teacher at an air force base in Japan who lived in the state until last year. A federal court in North Carolina said elections officials should begin the ballot curing process but otherwise hold off on certifying any results pending the court process. The judge in that case, a Trump appointee, would not issue a stay of the case. State law has long allowed overseas voters who claim North Carolina residency to vote in the state. But in interviews, several of those voters said they actually had lived in the US and were confused about the challenge to their eligibility and unsure how, or whether, they could fix it. Josiah Young, 20, was studying abroad in Spain when he cast an absentee ballot online, voting in his first presidential election. He is a freshman at American University in Washington DC, but a lifelong North Carolinian. He voted in his home state, which he still has listed as his permanent residence. Young found out his vote had been challenged a couple months ago, after one of his father's colleagues shared a PDF that included voters challenged by Jefferson Griffin in a lawsuit. 'Lo and behold, at the bottom of the list is a couple pages dedicated just to me. I was definitely surprised,' he said. 'It's pretty disappointing. As a first-time voter, I feel like I pretty much did everything that I was supposed to do. I cast my ballot legally, and then just to find out that someone, or anyone, is challenging my vote is pretty disappointing,' Young said. He believes he accidentally checked a box that said he had never lived in the US and didn't plan on returning. He's not sure there's any way to remedy the situation and get his vote counted. He has not been notified about his inclusion on the list by any elections officials or challengers, he said. He could have remedied the problem quickly, as he voted early, so he wishes he had known. One North Carolina voter who requested to speak anonymously said they believed they had accidentally checked the wrong box on the form to request a ballot. Instead of saying that they intended to return to the US or were uncertain whether they would return, the voter said they had never lived in the US. The voter, who was abroad for six years but has since returned to the US, first learned about the challenge last fall and tried to notify their local election office, but never heard back. 'I'm really upset that he would try to change the rules after losing the election,' the voter said. 'I think that's just very bad form for democracy.' Another challenged voter, Neil McWilliam, taught at Duke University for two decades before moving to France with his family in 2023. Originally from the UK, McWilliam, his wife and his son were naturalized in 2013, and he has voted in every state and federal election since. He is a Democrat, and his wife is registered as an independent. His vote was challenged, and hers was not. 'Political operatives like Griffin hope to instill cynicism and hopelessness in those who oppose them,' McWilliam said. 'The answer is not to reject voting as a waste of time, but to redouble efforts to ensure that everybody who is eligible can and does vote in fair elections free from partisan manipulation.' David Eberhard, also challenged by Griffin, is a former North Carolina resident who moved to Italy for his son's education but still owns his home in the state and intends to return. He voted while living in Italy in 2024 using the online forms provided by local officials, he said. He found out he had been challenged in January, has no idea why, and updated his information with North Carolina local officials. He's unsure of exactly what he's supposed to do. 'If I am supposed to present my credentials to a local official in person, I will have to travel at considerable expense and inconvenience, just because Griffin couldn't bother with the inconvenience of ensuring that the names on his list were in fact improperly registered,' he said.
The Guardian
16-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
North Carolina election loser gains support to overturn results: ‘bad for democracy'
More than five months after the 2024 election, a swath of voters in North Carolina are still unsure whether their votes will count in an unprecedented effort to overturn a valid US election. Democrat Allison Riggs defeated Republican Jefferson Griffin in a contest for the state supreme court. But after the election, Griffin challenged the eligibility of tens of thousands of voters. A ruling from the North Carolina supreme court on Friday paved the way for as many as 1,675 voters to have their ballots thrown out in the election – more than double Riggs's margin of victory. The challenged voters include someone who grew up in the state, a professor who was there for two decades, a lifelong resident studying abroad, and someone who still owns a home there and plans to move back, according to Guardian interviews. But Griffin claims they are 'never-residents', people who voted in North Carolina who had no previous residency in or attachments to the state. The Guardian spoke with several voters, first identified by the publication Anderson Alerts with their list later expanded upon by Popular Information, who were all living overseas when they cast their ballots in the North Carolina state supreme court race. At risk are two groups: 1,409 overseas voters from Guilford county, a Democratic-leaning area, who voted without showing photo ID – something that the law allows. Then, there are 266 overseas voters whom Griffin alleges have never lived in North Carolina, according to the North Carolina state board of elections. The court gave 30 days for elections officials to get more information from the overseas voters. It said that the 266 voters suspected of never being residents in the state should have their ballots thrown out. That would mean that the vote cast by Josey Wright, a 25-year-old PhD student studying in the UK, wouldn't count. Wright lived in North Carolina from early childhood until age 18. Her parents still live there, and she visits most years, typically spending summers there. She voted from abroad using a web portal available to US citizens who now live overseas, as she has done in several local and national elections since she moved to the UK to study. She found out her vote may not be counted after a reporter contacted her in recent days. 'It's a bit frustrating because it's already a bit more difficult, I think, to vote as an overseas voter,' Wright said. 'You have to be paying attention to US elections and also submit quite a bit of paperwork in order to get your ballot and to sign up for the portal. It's a bit disheartening that, after all that effort, my vote actually might not be counted.' The legal battle has drawn attention nationwide and protests locally because the courts could potentially overturn Riggs's victory by changing the rules of election procedure after the election happened. It's a road map that election challengers in other states, and in much bigger contests, could use in the future, if it's successful. If Trump had lost North Carolina, he was expected to make similar arguments. The ruling also set off a scramble to figure out next steps for the unprecedented election challenge. There's confusion over how to find these voters, how to cure their ballots, and what next steps will look like. The state board of elections said in a court filing yesterday that these voters would be reviewed by elections officials to see whether they have claims of residency in North Carolina, and whether, if they were found to be one-time residents and otherwise valid, their ballots would count. Multiple lawsuits have been filed in federal court to stop the ruling from taking effect. Plaintiffs in one of the cases include a military spouse living in Italy who was born and raised in North Carolina; a lifelong resident who moved to Switzerland for her husband's PhD program who is in the process of moving back to the state; a North Carolinian teaching English abroad on a one-year contract and a teacher at an air force base in Japan who lived in the state until last year. A federal court in North Carolina said elections officials should begin the ballot curing process but otherwise hold off on certifying any results pending the court process. The judge in that case, a Trump appointee, would not issue a stay of the case. State law has long allowed overseas voters who claim North Carolina residency to vote in the state. But in interviews, several of those voters said they actually had lived in the US and were confused about the challenge to their eligibility and unsure how, or whether, they could fix it. Josiah Young, 20, was studying abroad in Spain when he cast an absentee ballot online, voting in his first presidential election. He is a freshman at American University in Washington DC, but a lifelong North Carolinian. He voted in his home state, which he still has listed as his permanent residence. Young found out his vote had been challenged a couple months ago, after one of his father's colleagues shared a PDF that included voters challenged by Jefferson Griffin in a lawsuit. 'Lo and behold, at the bottom of the list is a couple pages dedicated just to me. I was definitely surprised,' he said. 'It's pretty disappointing. As a first-time voter, I feel like I pretty much did everything that I was supposed to do. I cast my ballot legally, and then just to find out that someone, or anyone, is challenging my vote is pretty disappointing,' Young said. He believes he accidentally checked a box that said he had never lived in the US and didn't plan on returning. He's not sure there's any way to remedy the situation and get his vote counted. He has not been notified about his inclusion on the list by any elections officials or challengers, he said. He could have remedied the problem quickly, as he voted early, so he wishes he had known. One North Carolina voter who requested to speak anonymously said they believed they had accidentally checked the wrong box on the form to request a ballot. Instead of saying that they intended to return to the US or were uncertain whether they would return, the voter said they had never lived in the US. The voter, who was abroad for six years but has since returned to the US, first learned about the challenge last fall and tried to notify their local election office, but never heard back. 'I'm really upset that he would try to change the rules after losing the election,' the voter said. 'I think that's just very bad form for democracy.' Another challenged voter, Neil McWilliam, taught at Duke University for two decades before moving to France with his family in 2023. Originally from the UK, McWilliam, his wife and his son were naturalized in 2013, and he has voted in every state and federal election since. He is a Democrat, and his wife is registered as an independent. His vote was challenged, and hers was not. 'Political operatives like Griffin hope to instill cynicism and hopelessness in those who oppose them,' McWilliam said. 'The answer is not to reject voting as a waste of time, but to redouble efforts to ensure that everybody who is eligible can and does vote in fair elections free from partisan manipulation.' David Eberhard, also challenged by Griffin, is a former North Carolina resident who moved to Italy for his son's education but still owns his home in the state and intends to return. He voted while living in Italy in 2024 using the online forms provided by local officials, he said. He found out he had been challenged in January, has no idea why, and updated his information with North Carolina local officials. He's unsure of exactly what he's supposed to do. 'If I am supposed to present my credentials to a local official in person, I will have to travel at considerable expense and inconvenience, just because Griffin couldn't bother with the inconvenience of ensuring that the names on his list were in fact improperly registered,' he said.
