While there has been significant coverage of the election protests for the North Carolina Supreme Court election in both state and national news, the coverage has been chiefly topline and lacked a complete picture of the number of voters challenged in each protest. The lack of full context has created many misconceptions about the Griffin campaign’s challenges and the probability of the election going in his favor depending on the number of protests being accepted.
My colleague, Dr. Andy Jackson, has already broken down the six types of protests the Griffin campaign filed in late November. While the protests have been available to the public since the beginning, the layout of the files made it difficult to get a proper number for each of the various protests. However, I could compile the protests into one list from the Excel files the Board of Elections created. This data is supported by the findings in the Board of Elections’ order published Friday, December 13th.
The number of challenges for each type of protest is as follows:
- Deceased voters: (156)
- Non-registered voters: (572)
- Felon voters: (240)
- No ID for overseas voters: (1,409)
- Overseas voting by non-residents (FPCA): (266)
- Incomplete voter registration information: (60,273)
The State Board of Elections divided these challenges into two groups: the first three were empirical questions to be initially addressed by the county board of elections, and the latter three were legal questions to be addressed by the State Board. There are two important caveats to the numbers in these protests.
The first is that while there are 968 challenges, in some cases, the same voter was challenged in several protests. Between this and some challenges being dropped, the total number of county-level protests is 817 voters being challenged.
The second is that while the Griffin campaign sought to challenge additional ballots for “Overseas voting by non-residents” and “No ID for overseas voters” challenges, the State Board of Elections decided not to consider these additional protests. They reasoned that the deadline for protests had passed when the supplement filings were submitted.
Where do each of the protests stand?
The state board of elections rejected all three legal protests in their meeting on Wednesday, December 11th. The votes were along party lines for all protests except the one on “No IDs for overseas voters. ” While contentious, the vote eventually passed unanimously in that protest. The NCGOP and the Griffin campaign have indicated they intend to challenge the Board of Elections’ decision through the courts.
There are some mixed results regarding the county-level protests. According to NCSBE communications director Pat Gannon, of the 817 voters challenged, 315 had already been removed during the canvassing process, which occurred 10 days after the election.
Of the remaining 502 voters being challenged, 314 were found eligible, five were found not to have voted, 60 were found ineligible and currently have their ballot being counted, and the state board of elections is still waiting on rulings for 68 ballots.
The state board of elections will hear appeals on 127 ballots in its next meeting on Friday, December 20th. Sixty of these ballots are ineligible voters whose ballots are in the count, and 67 were found eligible but are being appealed. Even if all 127 ballots are for Riggs, this still falls short of the 734 votes that Griffin would need to tie the results.
The only way for Griffin to overcome the lead Riggs currently holds is if the court accepts an argument regarding either the “incomplete voter registration information” or the “no ID for overseas voters” protests. There is some chance that a challenge to just the IDs of overseas voters could flip the seat in Griffin’s favor, but only 1,409 ballots are being challenged under this protest.
A legal challenge could much more likely overturn the election if the court accepts the argument on “incomplete voter registration information.” Out of the total 62,916 challenges to ballots, the voter registration challenge made up 96% of them. A challenge to 225,000 voter registrations for this very issue is already before the Federal Court of Appeals.
The question will be whether this is added to the current case or if a separate challenge will go through the state courts. Either way, Griffin’s only path to victory appears to be appealing the challenges that were denied by the State Board of Elections.
