Republican protests in close North Carolina races dismissed by elections board

RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina's elections board dismissed formal protests Wednesday by several Republican candidates who trailed narrowly in their races last month and had questioned well over 60,000 ballots cast this fall.

The State Board of Elections' decisions sided with the Democratic candidates, including those for a state Supreme Court seat and a key General Assembly seat. These matters are now expected to be resolved in the courts.

The board voted in favor of denying the protests of GOP Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin, who after a recent statewide machine recount trailed Associate Justice Allison Riggs by 734 votes from over 5.5 million ballots cast. No additional recounts had been ordered after a partial hand recount completed Tuesday failed to suggest that Griffin could catch up to Riggs.

Riggs is one of only two Democrats on the seven-member court, which has been a partisan flash point in the state over the past two years in court battles involving redistricting, photo voter identification and other voting rights.

The board on Wednesday considered protests filed by Griffin, a current Court of Appeals judge, and three candidates for the General Assembly covering three categories of voting.

Those categories included votes cast by people with voter registration records lacking driver’s licenses or containing partial Social Security numbers; overseas voters who have never lived in the U.S. but whose parents were deemed North Carolina residents; and military or overseas voters who did not provide copies of photo identification with their ballots.

The board is composed of three Democrats and two Republicans. In three of four dismissal motions Wednesday, the votes were 3-2 along party lines. The vote on the other motion was unanimous.

Riggs' campaign has said that she is the winner and that Griffin should concede immediately.

Speaking after the hearing, Riggs mentioned that her parents were among the 60,000 voters whose votes were being challenged, and “I can personally attest they are in fact lawful votes."

Griffin didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the decisions. State Republican Party Chairman Jason Simmons said in a news release that the “board’s continued efforts to engineer political outcomes for Democrats is shameful" and suggested appeals could be ahead.

Another candidate protester is GOP Rep. Frank Sossamon, who trailed Democratic challenger Bryan Cohn. A Cohn victory would mean Republicans fall one seat short of retaining their current veto-proof majority for the next two-year General Assembly starting next month.

The board could have ultimately ordered corrected ballot tallies, more recounts or new elections if it determined the evidence showed election law violations or irregularities called into question the results of the protested elections.

Scores of protests filed by Griffin and the legislative candidates are still being considered by county boards.

During Wednesday's hearing, Riggs' attorneys urged the state board to throw out the protests. They called that an illegal attempt to change the election rules after votes have been cast and counted and out of line with protest rules.

“The voters that protesters are challenging here today unquestionably are eligible voters,” said Will Robertson, an attorney representing the three Democratic legislative candidates and the state Democratic Party. “These protests are not only facially invalid but they’re an affront to democracy and to the rule of law in North Carolina.”

Citing the state constitution, attorneys for Griffin argued that elections boards cannot count the ballots of people who have never lived in North Carolina. And they said the state board erred by generating voter registration forms that did not make clear that state law requires an applicant to provide one of the identifying numbers.

“We filed these protests because we believe the winners of these elections should be determined by eligible voters and only be eligible voters,” Craig Schauer, an attorney for Griffin and GOP legislative candidates, told the board.

In addition to the substance of the protests, Democratic board members also threw out the protests because they determined that voters did not receive appropriate legal notice that their votes were being challenged.

Griffin sent postcards to a voter or the “current resident” stating that “your vote may be affected” by a protest, according to legal briefs and evidence. It included a QR code that mobile phone users could visit to obtain information. Democrats said people may have thrown the postcard away or considered it a scam.

The state board's decisions came days after the state Democratic Party sued in federal court to block the State Board of Elections from ruling in any way to throw out the disputed ballots.

Griffin led Riggs by about 10,000 votes on election night, but that lead dwindled and flipped to Riggs as qualifying provisional and absentee ballots were added to the totals.