(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) A Republican candidate for the North Carolina Supreme Court is demanding a recount after Democrat ballot “curing” reversed his 10,000 vote lead to a deficit of 643 votes, arguing that many of the Democrats’ so-called voters were ineligible, or even dead.
In Mecklenburg County, 28 votes came from individuals who died before the election. 32 votes came from voters who were not active registrants, which is clearly unlawful. Approximately 6,000 votes came from people with incomplete registrations.
This is just one county. WILD! pic.twitter.com/ehCcn1V7S7
— George (@BehizyTweets) November 21, 2024
Within just a two election cycles, North Carolina Democrats have gone from controlling the state Supreme Court to facing the prospect of a 5-1 GOP majority.
Given the Tarheel State’s standing as one of the most evenly split swing states—and a true unicorn in that it has a Democrat executive branch with a GOP-dominated legislature—the court has played a significant role that sometimes spills onto the national stage in contentious debates including the battle over redistricting and a voter ID referendum.
But despite Republican victories on those fronts, it seems the state still has some work to do in maintaining its election integrity.
Democrats are attempting to reverse the election-night victories of several key races, with a veto-proof Republican super-majority in the legislature potentially at stake, prompting the GOP candidates in at least three races to call for recounts.
Most egregious among them was a closely watched race against Democrat state Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs, whose name says it all.
Riggs, a left-wing activist who previously filed anti-integrity lawsuits in the state, was appointed last year by Gov. Roy Cooper to fill the vacancy after Justice Michael Morgan resigned to run in the Democratic primary for governor.
Although Morgan lost his primary to eventual gubernatorial victor Josh Stein—the state’s current attorney general—he opted not to run for his old job, clearing the field for Riggs to run as the incumbent.
Her Republican challenger, Jefferson Griffin—a 44-year-old appellate judge and Duke University law student—appeared to have bested Riggs on election night. But gradually the margin narrowed as Riggs took advantage of a 10-day window between when ballots were cast and when they were canvassed to find the votes she needed, borrowing a page from notorious Democrat attorney Marc Elias’s playbook.
“We always knew this race would be incredibly close, but it may come down to just dozens of votes,” she coyly posted on X.
On Friday, 91 out of 100 counties finished their county canvasses, and I’m now leading the race for NC Supreme Court by 24 votes. We always knew this race would be incredibly close, but it may come down to just dozens of votes.
— Allison Riggs (@AllisonJRiggs) November 17, 2024
Griffin was obliged to threaten a lawsuit against the state Board of Elections, led by Cooper-appointed Democrats, after it slow-walked its canvassing data, nearly forcing him to miss the deadline to file a challenge, the Duke Chronicle reported.
According to a report from the nonprofit Electoral Education Foundation—a watchdog group founded by Hal Weatherman, who was the candidate in the state’s recent race for lieutenant governor—the Board of Elections committed at least four significant failures in compiling and reporting its voter data.
Those included:
- 150,000 added to the voter rolls who did not have a valid voter ID
- 2,000 overseas voters who did not provide an overseas address
- 8,401 same-day registrants who may also have received absentee ballots
- vote totals that were switched back and forth repeatedly after the final data upload “indicating manual manipulation of data
Weatherman told Headline USA that EEF had shared its findings with Griffin’s legal team and with the state General Assembly.
After cross-referencing the voter data, Griffin discovered that there were more than 60,000 suspect voters, including those who were dead, who had invalid registrations—or none at all—and who were ineligible due to felony records.
“Protecting election integrity is not just an option—it’s our duty,” Griffin said in a press release from the North Carolina Republican Party announcing his challenge of the final tally. “These protests are about one fundamental principle: ensuring every legal vote is counted.”
If more than 626 votes are discovered to be illegitimate, the likely outcome would be that the Board of Elections would order an election do-over.
BREAKING: GOP North Carolina Supreme Court Candidate Jefferson Griffin, whose lead was overcome by late ballots in favor of the Democrat candidate, has filed to challenge the validity of over 60,000 ballots
Griffin's list includes votes from dead people, votes with incomplete… pic.twitter.com/MynO7opAXr
— George (@BehizyTweets) November 21, 2024
North Carolina’s statewide races have been fraught in recent years with the “taint of fraud” and other election shenanigans.
In 2018, the Supreme Court’s other sitting Democrat, Anita Earls, helped secure a leftist majority by ousting Republican incumbent Barbara Jackson after Democrats funded an imposter candidate as a GOP challenger to split the ticket, banking on the fact that voters would not have sufficiently researched the down-ballot races.
That same election, Democrats—in possible collusion with former members of the state Board of Elections—sought to steal a U.S. congressional race won by Baptist preacher Mark Harris, a Republican, by accusing Harris of illegal ballot harvesting.
Although Democrats frequently embrace the tactic wherever they can to secure extra votes—often under the most dubious of circumstances—Elias, the notorious DNC mega-lawyer, found himself arguing against the process as part of the effort to set up Harris and force an election do-over.
Amid a tense televised hearing in which Harris’s own son was called to testify against him, the Republican victor dropped out of the race but was subsequently absolved of any wrongdoing. Rep. Dan Bishop, the Republican who replaced him on the ticket, eventually won the rematch.
But Harris is now the congressman-elect, having coasted to victory in the 2024 race after Bishop stepped aside in an unsuccessful bid for state attorney general.
Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.
