North Carolina Republicans have a penchant for trying to overturn elections they lost. Now they are at it again.
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North Carolina Republicans are really bad at democracy, but they are great at changing the rules after voters elect Democrats.
Both of these things were on full display once again Friday, when two GOP judges on the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled in favor of their colleague, Judge Jefferson Griffin (R), who is contesting his loss to Allison Riggs, the Democrat who beat him by 734 votes last November in a race for a seat on the state Supreme Court.
Instead of acknowledging his defeat, Griffin challenged the eligibility of 65,000 voters. The Republican candidate asserted that they did not provide all required information to register to vote. However, he also acknowledged that this was not their fault, and he has also not found proof that any of these North Carolinians were indeed ineligible to vote.
In other words, the voters did what they were told, but now Griffin wants to disenfranchise them nearly six months after their votes were cast.
While the State Board of Elections had decided that these ballots should be counted, Griffin’s colleagues on the Court of Appeals were amenable to the idea of stealing a Supreme Court seat from a Democrat his arguments.
However, instead of simply handing the Republican judge the victory outright, they are giving these voters 15 days to provide the information that is missing, e.g., the last four digits of Social Security number for Tarheel State residents or a photo ID for North Carolinians serving overseas.
In addition, they tossed out the votes of a few hundred people who have never resided in the state but were registered to vote there. This primarily affects children of residents who are living abroad. While North Carolina passed a law allowing this group of people to vote, the GOP judges felt differently about it.
In a blistering dissent, the Democratic judge on the appeals panel argued that his Republican colleagues were trying to change the rules after the fact.
North Carolina: America’s Anti-Democracy State Is at It Again
“Every single voter challenged by Petitioner in this appeal, both here and abroad, cast their absentee, early, or overseas ballot by following every instruction they were given to do so,” wrote Judge Toby Hampson, adding that Griffin had not found a single voter who was actually ineligible.
“Changing the rules by which these lawful voters took part in our electoral process after the election to discard their otherwise valid votes in an attempt to alter the outcome of only one race among many on the ballot is directly counter to law, equity, and the Constitution,” Hampson stated.
Of course, changing the rules after losing an election is a specialty of the North Carolina GOP.
In fact, it’s a bit of a compulsion.
For example, when Roy Cooper (D) won the state’s gubernatorial election, Republicans used their majority (gained from voter suppression laws and one of the country’s most aggressive gerrymanders) to immediately curtail his powers.
Specifically, they wanted to prevent the new governor from appointing a majority of the members of the States Board of Elections.
In 2024, when voters once again chose a Democrat, Josh Stein, to lead them, the GOP legislature used legislation meant to provide disaster relief hit by Hurricane Helene to once again strip the governor of the power to pick the majority of the members of the Board. This time, they voted to turn that power over to the state auditor, who just happened to be a Republican.
So, this is just the latest attempt of the GOP to overturn the results of an election.
We will know soon whether they are going to get away with it.
