Trailing by 734 votes, losing his Supreme Court race to Democrat Allison Riggs, Jefferson Griffin headed to court, contesting the election.
Nothing wrong with that.
Fifty years ago Jack Hawke – who went on to become Republican Party Chairman – ran for Congress, lost by 900 votes, headed to court. Tom Ellis, his lawyer, later told me stories about standing in the courtroom, staring at the judge, fighting an uphill battle.
Since Jack lost by 900 votes, to get the judge to overturn the election they had to prove 900 people voted illegally – that those illegal votes may have cost Jack the election. But they couldn’t simply point to a ballot and say, This one smells bad. They had to prove to the judge 900 people had voted illegally.
In the end Jack and Tom Ellis were able to hand the judge evidence 700 people voted illegally – but Jack lost by 900 votes so 700 wasn’t enough to overturn the election.
That was how the law worked back then: A judge couldn’t throw out a vote because it smelled bad. He had to have proof it was bad. And he couldn’t order a new election without proof at least 900 votes had been stolen – enough to show Jack may have won on election day.
Jefferson Griffin, losing his Supreme Court race, headed down a different road. He didn’t stand in front of a judge, point to 735 votes, and say, Your Honor, here’s evidence those 735 people voted illegally. Instead, he pointed to three blocks of voters – 65,000 voters in all – and said, Those ballots smell bad. Throw ‘em all out.
Pointing to the first block of 60,000 voters, in four heavily Democratic counties, Griffin told the judge the State Board of Elections didn’t have name IDs in its records for those voters – so how could the judge be sure those people who were who they said they were. Griffin didn’t prove they had voted illegally. He said they might have voted illegally. And asked the judge to throw out their votes.
The Board of Elections answered that most of those people had been registered for years. They’d voted in a lot of elections. And every one of them had to show an ID on Election Day – the day they voted – so even if that information wasn’t on their voter file their vote was legal.
The state Supreme Court ruled those 60,000 votes were legal – a blow to Griffin.
That left the last two groups he challenged.
Both those groups of voters lived overseas.
Griffin said there was no proof the first group, around 300 people, had ever been North Carolina residents. That sounded odd. How could someone who never lived in North Carolina vote here – it turned out it wasn’t as odd as it sounded: If a soldier, a North Carolina resident, was living overseas (say, serving at a military base in Germany) with his family and his daughter turned 18 she registered for the first time. But since she was a new voter the State Elections Board had no records in its files showing she’d ever lived in North Carolina.
Griffin won that round – the Supreme Court threw out all 300 votes. But it wasn’t enough to overturn the election.
The last group, around 5500 voters, were all registered in the four Democratic counties Griffin contested. They could have been soldiers, or businessmen, or college students living overseas.
Griffin’s case that their votes should be thrown out was straightforward: They hadn’t had to show a voter ID the day they voted.
The Elections Board replied that because its electronic portal couldn’t process IDs from voters living overseas it hadn’t required those voters to provide IDs.
The judges on the Supreme Court mulled that one over, headed down a third road – they gave those voters 30 days to provide an ID to the Elections Board. If they do, their vote counts. If they don’t, their vote gets tossed.
That sounded okay – but created an awkward problem.
It meant a North Carolina citizen, living overseas, who voted legally, would have his vote thrown out unless he sent the Elections Board an ID within 30 days. In other words, his vote was legal, but got thrown out.
That left one last problem. The only votes thrown out would be from the four Democratic counties Griffin contested. What about overseas voters from the other 96 counties who hadn’t provided IDs? Their votes would be counted. Even if they weren’t legal voters.
That sounded silly: Some legal votes may get tossed out. Some illegal votes may get counted. But the way our most astute judges, sitting on the Supreme Court wearing robes looked at it, that was the right thing to do.
*******
Telling stories, in his memoir Carter Wrenn follows The Trail of the Serpent twisting and turning through politics from Reagan to Trump. Order his book from Amazon.
