A Republican from North Carolina challenges around 65,000 votes: NPR

Charlotte, NC-Tory Grimm-Oropesa moved from Northern California to Charlotte in 2022. Then she voted in two elections without incidents. But after she voted in November last year, she received an unusual mail item.

“I received a postcard with a QR code by post stating that my ballot was disputed,” she said.

That postcard came from the Republican Jefferson Griffin campaign, in a competition for a seat in the Supreme Court of North Carolina. After two recalls in the Swing State, Griffin is standing with a miniscule 734 votes from the more than 5.5 million votes cast behind the democratic sitting Allison Riggs.

Griffin did not point out any case of voters fraud, but he disputes the voice of Grimm-Oropesa-together with around 65,000 others.

His challenge means that a bitter battle for a seat in the State Supreme Court is still working through the courts, more than 80 days after the election day.

The next step comes on Monday, when the 4th American circuit Court of Appeals will hear the arguments, before it ultimately decides whether the case should be decided before the Federal Court or before the Constitution.

In the meantime, Grimm-Oropesa is angry.

“It is not a matter that I did something wrong or that I try to play cheating when voting,” she said. “I have now voted in three different elections, fine, I have never had problems. So I don’t understand why this and only this one result should be thrown away.”

3 buckets with disputed ballot papers

In 2023, Riggs was appointed as a member of the Supreme Court of North Carolina by the then Democratic government Roy Cooper. She has withdrawn from this case and may have determined her own election.

But she has publicly criticized Griffin’s challenge. In a recent statement, Riggs said that Griffin wasted tax money in “an unfounded attempt to undo his election loss.”

Griffin said that he cannot comment on his legal efforts.

There are some chosen officials on the list of challengers. It also includes the parents of Riggs. The disputed ballot papers are divided into three buckets:

• Just over 60,000 of them are due to incomplete registrations of voters. At some point, the voter registration forms of North Carolina did not explicitly mention that a driving license number or the last four digits of a citizen service number were needed. It is believed that more than 200,000 voters miss information throughout the state.
• Griffin also challenges a small group foreign voters who have not lived in North Carolina.
• And then around 5,500 of the disputed ballot papers also come from abroad. When voting, those voters did not show a copy of their proof of identity with a photo, and Griffin argued that they should be thrown out. These disputed ballot papers come from only four democratically oriented provinces in the state.

The State Council for elections had approved rules that no proof of identity with photo requirements for ballot papers abroad. These rules were subsequently unanimously approved in March by the North Carolina Rules Review Commission, the ten members of which were selected by the Republican leaders of the State House and the Senate.

And both the Republicans and the Democrats in the State Council for elections in December rejected Griffin’s attempt to disqualify those voters.

The certification of the elections is blocked

Political adviser to De Gop, Paul Shumaker, who advised the Griffin campaign, said that it is reasonable that a court regains the decisions of the election council and other authorities – even if these are two -hearted.

“Why do we have to have an appointed board that makes the final decision about the interpretation of our laws? Do we really want that?” he said. “We have a judicial test of the legislative process. [What] About judicial [review] of the administrative process and how our elections are handled? “

The Supreme Court of North Carolina has blocked the certification of the elections. But last week it said that the challenge first had to be dealt with for lower constitutional courts, a setback for Griffin.

Chief Judicine Paul Newby, a Republican,, however, seemed to support Griffin’s challenge. He also held doubts about the entire election process.

In the ruling, he said that Riggs’ assets to erase Griffin’s lead of 10,000 votes on the election evening was a ‘very unusual course of events’. (It is common in elections that one candidate seems to be in charge and then falls behind if all results are added.)

Newby wrote: “[T]His case is not about deciding on the results of elections. The point is to maintain the trust of the public in our elections through the rule of law. “

The State Council for elections, which has a democratic majority, has said that counting postal and provisional ballot papers after the election day was in accordance with the Studies Act.

Some Republicans feel uncomfortable with Griffin’s challenge

While the dispute continues, some Republicans say that Griffin went too far.

Judge Richard Dietz of the Supreme Court of the Republican State wrote earlier this month that the ‘incredible calamity’ would provoke to lawsuits after the elections that ‘aim to rewrite the election rules of our state’ and ‘the voting rights in elections to deprive people who are already legally voted under the existing rules. “

Andrew Dunn, the communication director of a failed Republican campaign for Governor four years ago, said that the Democratic Party statements about threats for democracy are usually exaggerated in his opinion.

“For me, however, this case is different,” he said. “This case is about complaining about the results of elections and trying to go back and disqualify voters with retroactive effect who voted in good faith.”

Depending on the judgments of the court, the race for the Supreme Court of the State could be determined again – or new elections could be ordered.

In the meantime, voters such as Annie Rickenbaugh from Charlotte wonder if their disputed ballot papers will still count.

“I am an ordinary person trying to pay my rent,” she said. “I don’t want to deal with this.”

She said she went to the province’s election council to register again, hoping that her ballot will never be disputed again.