Democrats and voting rights activists are excoriating a majority ruling from the North Carolina Court of Appeals Friday that takes a Republican judicial candidate one step closer to overturning the results of his contest.
A two-judge majority on the appeals court panel has ruled that tens of thousands of voters who cast ballots in the November race have 15 days to verify their eligibility to elections officials or have their votes invalidated.
According to a statement issued late Friday afternoon by the state elections board, the appeals court ruling is not yet in effect, meaning the 15 day clock has not started, and an appeal is likely. Meanwhile, if and when the ruling does take effect, the elections board statement said county boards of elections might have to contact voters whose ballots are being challenged.
Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin, a judge on the state appeals court, trails Democratic incumbent Justice Allison Riggs by 734 votes, as shown by two recounts. But he has challenged more than 60,000 ballots over alleged irregularities.
In December, the North Carolina State Board of Elections dismissed Griffin's protests, noting he has failed to produce actual evidence of any ineligible voters. Then, in February, a Wake County Superior Court judge upheld the board's dismissal.
Two GOP judges outvoted one Democrat on the panel
Friday's majority ruling pit two Republicans, John Tyson and Fred Gore, against the sole Democrat, Toby Hampson, on the three-judge panel.
The majority wrote that the "sole issue and concern" for the appeals court was the election was "conducted in accord with the will of the people of North Carolina, as expressed by them in their Constitution and in their statutes as enacted by their representatives."
The two-judge majority said that including even one unlawful vote would dilute lawful votes.
Griffin has alleged that most of the challenged voters' ballots should be invalidated because the voters were not properly registered under state law, since their records lack either a driver's license number or last four digits of their Social Security Number.
The state elections board has determined that more than half of the voters challenged under this premise actually did provide the identifying information, which has been required since the passage of the federal Help America Vote Act, but the numbers are missing from the voters' records due to clerical and administrative errors.
Moreover, attorneys for the state elections board have argued, all of the voters would have been verified as legitimate through the voting process, which now includes presenting photo identification. Additionally, both state and federal law allow for the registration--and enfranchisement--of voters who do not have either a driver's license or Social Security Number.
Griffin also challenged more than 5,000 absentee ballots cast by military and overseas voters from four blue counties who did not provide photo ID, even though state law exempts them from doing so.
And Griffin protested a few hundred ballots cast by voters who have never resided in the state, despite the fact that a North Carolina statute explicitly permits overseas voters in this category to do so.
Ruling an 'attack on the voters of North Carolina'
In dissent, Judge Hampson accused the majority of "legislating from the bench."
Hampson said Griffin and the court's majority are seeking to change the rules "by which these lawful voters took part in our electoral process" and that doing so runs "directly counter to law, equity, and the Constitution."
"To accept Petitioner鈥檚 indiscriminate efforts to call into doubt the votes of tens of thousands of otherwise eligible voters, without any showing any challenged voter was disqualified under existing law from voting is to elevate speculation and surmise over evidence and reason," Hampson wrote in his dissent.
Furthermore, Hampson added, despite the "invented" cure ordered by the majority, the ruling will lead to "the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters in categories selected by Petitioner in order that he may have a second chance at winning his election."
"Today's decision by two Republican judges is an attack on the voters of North Carolina," Rep. Robert Reives, top Democrat in the State House of Representatives, said in a statement issued to the media. "Our democracy continues to be tested but we cannot allow it to break."
In a statement issued to the news media, Bob Phillips, Executive Director of the voting rights group Common Cause North Carolina, called Friday's ruling a "disgrace."
"This poorly conceived decision is an extreme overreach and sides with a sore loser candidate over the citizens of our state," Phillips said.
What comes next is not clear
North Carolina Republicans, however, have indicated they see the appellate panel's majority ruling as vindication.
鈥淥ur position has not wavered and today鈥檚 decision confirms the facts were on Judge Griffin鈥檚 side,鈥� said NCGOP Chairman Jason Simmons in a statement issued to the media. 鈥淭his a victory for the rule of law and election integrity.鈥�
