The North Carolina Board of Elections voted 3-to-2, along party lines, not to move forward with a hearing to determine the validity of roughly 60,000 ballots that have been questioned by Republican State Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin — who trails Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs by 734 votes.
Even after two recounts, Riggs’ narrow lead has held. But Griffin and Republicans are challenging the validity of roughly 60,000 voters’ ballots.
They say some of their registrations are incomplete and missing information like Social Security number and their votes should not count. The list of contested voters includes Riggs’ parents.
Democrats, like board chair Alan Hirsch, said the voters had done nothing wrong, their registrations and ballots had been accepted, and there is no sign of any fraud.
He asked, “They all believed that they were registered voters is that correct?”
Attorney Craig Schauer, who is representing Griffin, responded, “I don’t know what the individual voters believed Mr. chair.”
Hirsch said, “Well they came to vote didn’t they?”
It’s expected Griffin will appeal the board’s decision in state court.
The North Carolina Democratic Party has filed a lawsuit in federal court in an attempt to block the state board from rejecting any ballots.
Democratic Party chair Anderson Clayton has said she believes the GOP challenges are “sinister” and an attempt by Republicans to overturn the result.