Their predictable response to crushing defeat is to try to undo the election results.
This week, North Carolina Republicans continued making moves in the halls of power to both seize authority over future elections and steal a victory for an apparently defeated Republican high-court candidate.
As the votes were tallied and Democratic Justice Allison Riggs secured victory (pending a recount) by just 722 votes this week, Republicans in the North Carolina Legislature rolled out a massive, wide-ranging bill that included power grabs that give them more control over elections, the courts, and the executive branch. The bill passed both houses and faces a likely veto by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
At the same time, Riggs’ opponent—Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin—filed challenges that seek to cancel the ballots of 60,000 voters. By the end of Election Day, officials had tallied thousands more votes for Griffin than Riggs. But Democrats pushed the tens of thousands of voters who had cast a provisional ballot to “cure” their ballots, and Riggs ended up with 722 more votes in the end.
Griffin alleges that some voters were ineligible and that some votes were improperly counted. He’s challenging some ballots sent in by overseas voters, including military families—despite the fact that he serves in the National Guard. Many of his challenges rely on legal arguments that have been rejected by courts in the past.
The ballot challenges will be considered first by the local and state boards of elections. The state board was appointed by the governor and currently includes a Democratic majority. If the board rejects the challenges, Griffin’s last-ditch effort could go to state court, where Republicans have a 5–2 majority on the state Supreme Court and an even larger majority on the Court of Appeals.
If Republican judges throw out enough votes in Riggs’ favor, Griffin could snatch victory from the jaws of a defeat. (Griffin has also requested a recount, but past recounts have only changed a few votes.) Justice Riggs has already overcome attempts by Republican politicians to manipulate the election.
It’s not the first time that Republican politicians have attempted to undo election results. In 2016, after voters narrowly ousted Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, the lame-duck governor filed thousands of baseless challenges, almost all of which were dismissed.
This month, it took election officials in some counties nearly two weeks to count all of the ballots. That’s because there were more than 60,000 provisional ballots this year, many more than previous years. This was the first presidential election with a voter ID requirement, and eligible voters who lacked the required ID had to cast a provisional ballot that was only counted if they “cured” the ballot by bringing an ID to the local board of elections.
Voters would have been forced to show an ID and faced similar threat of disenfranchisement for the past decade in North Carolina if not for Riggs’ work as a civil rights lawyer. Riggs persuaded federal courts to strike down a 2013 North Carolina voter ID requirement as intentionally discriminatory. The court found that legislators had targeted Black voters with “almost surgical precision.” (The lawmaker who sponsored the 2013 bill was elected to the Court of Appeals two weeks ago.) However, lawmakers passed a new voter ID law a few years ago.
Despite the influx of provisional ballots this year, a new bill moving through the state Legislature in the lame-duck sessions would make it impossible for local election officials to count all of these ballots in future elections. The bill would give officials three days to count the ballots, which took two weeks this year. Republicans just don’t want to count all the votes.
And that’s not the only bad provision in the bill. As Jefferson Griffin tried to prevent tens of thousands of votes from being counted, his fellow Republicans in the state Legislature engaged in another massive power grab that could help them manipulate future elections.
On Monday, they unveiled a bill to the public just before it was introduced in a committee and a few hours before the state House voted on the measure. Ostensibly, it was a “hurricane relief” bill to help the victims of Hurricane Helene—but the real beneficiaries were Republican lawmakers. The impetus for the legislation was clear: One GOP legislator even admitted these provisions of the bill were a “response to some elections.”
Among other things, the bill takes power from the Democratic governor-elect and makes it much harder for voters who lack the required voter ID to have their ballot counted. It allows Republicans to take over election boards and creates new judgeships that will be filled by lawmakers, not the voters. It drastically limits the attorney general’s power and other executive branch officials, as well as curtailing the governor’s constitutional authority to appoint judges.
Republicans passed the lame-duck power grab just weeks before they will lose their veto-proof supermajority. Three House Republicans from Western North Carolina, which was ravaged by the hurricane, voted against the sham “hurricane relief” bill. If the legislation is vetoed and the three lawmakers don’t support a veto override, it wouldn’t become law.
The legislation would undermine the authority of Governor-elect Josh Stein and the incoming attorney general, Jeff Jackson, both Democrats. Among other things, Stein, who defeated self-described “Black Nazi” Mark Robinson by a sizable margin, would have his appointment authority sharply limited. The board of elections would no longer be appointed by the governor. Instead, elections would be administered by the newly elected Republican state auditor. The bill would achieve the goal that Republicans have sought for nearly a decade: GOP control of elections.
Republican legislators in the past decade have passed several bills to change how the elections board is appointed, but all of them were struck down as unconstitutional. And when lawmakers tried to amend the constitution to seize control of the board, voters overwhelmingly rejected the proposal.
Yet now, as public attention wanes in the postelection period, they are once again thwarting the will of the voters. There should be no doubt that they want control of elections, because they intend to make it harder to vote. Indeed, a decade ago—the last time Republicans controlled the elections board— some local elections boards slashed early voting times and moved polling places.
As mentioned, this is not the first time that Republicans in the North Carolina Legislature have attempted to remake the state following electoral losses. The Legislature introduced a similar series of power grabs during the 2016 lame-duck session after voters ousted a Republican governor. This led to a massive protest at the state Legislature. Lawmakers backed down from many of their worst efforts, including a plot to pack the state Supreme Court to undo the voters’ decision to elect a progressive majority.
The new bill, though, includes similar power grabs. If it passes, the governor would be required to fill judicial vacancies with an appointee of the same party as the departing judge or justice. Republicans currently control the high court and the Court of Appeals. If a Republican judge dies, retires, or is appointed to a federal court by Donald Trump, the Democratic governor would have to choose an appointee from a list drawn up by the state GOP.
The legislation also targets the courts, eliminating the seats of two judges who ruled against Republicans in voting rights cases. It creates, in their stead, two new “special” judicial seats that will be filled by legislative leaders, not the voters.
If the bill becomes law, Attorney General-elect Jeff Jackson would also not be able to challenge the state Legislature in court. Though he was elected by voters to represent the state, Jackson would be barred from taking legal positions that the Legislature doesn’t like. The attorney general-elect defeated a former Republican lawmaker who previously orchestrated power grabs in Raleigh similar to the ones being attempted now.
Many of these changes are blatantly unconstitutional. But lawmakers don’t care. That’s because the GOP majority on the high court largely serves as the Legislature’s rubber stamp. Last year, the Republican justices even overturned recent decisions that banned gerrymandering. This enabled legislators to redraw election districts to benefit their party. But despite this unfair advantage, Republicans lost their veto-proof majority.
The voters of North Carolina made clear in this election that they are not interested in one-party rule—but that’s exactly what Republican legislators are using the lame-duck session to cement. Lawmakers responded to the voters’ decision to elect Democrats to the executive and judicial branches by questioning election results and attacking the authority of those branches.
Voters must make their voices known on these issues. They can speak out against the stealing of the high court election, as well as this voter suppression bill that could help Republicans steal future elections.