NC Supreme Court election protest ensnares voters of all stripes. See if you’re on the list.

This story was first published by Lynn Bonner, NC Newsline
December 9, 2024

Raymond Corbett of Johnston County has voted in every general election in North Carolina since at least 2004 and will say, unprompted, that Ronald Reagan was the last great president. 

He doesn’t think much of lawyers and politicians. When he received a mailer from the state Republican Party telling him his vote in this year’s election might be challenged, he told his wife to throw it away. 

“I don’t get involved in all that mess,” he said. 

Still, he doesn’t think it’s right that after casting ballots for so many years that the legitimacy of his vote is being questioned. Everyone has the right to vote, Corbett said, unless they’re in the country illegally. “It’s a constitutional right.”

Republican Appeals Court Judge Jefferson Griffin is challenging more than 60,000 ballots as part of his attempt to unseat Democratic incumbent Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs. 

Riggs had a lead of 734 votes after all the 5.5 million ballots were counted the first time. A machine recount Griffin requested affirmed that 734 lead. Griffin requested and is getting a partial hand recount. 

The bulk of the ballots Griffin wants thrown out are votes of people who may not have included a partial Social Security number or driver’s license number on their voter registration forms. His voter challenge casts a wide net. It captures long-time Republican, Democratic, and unaffiliated voters who are now having the legitimacy of their ballots questioned. 

Corbett is an unaffiliated voter. He said in an interview that he didn’t remember whether he voted for Griffin. 

“There were so many names on that ballot it would make your head spin,” he said. “Most of those people I haven’t even heard of.”
Wade Leatham is a member of the Wayne County Board of Education and a Republican who is having his vote challenged. (Photo: Waynecountyschools.org)

Griffin’s protest impacts elected officials

But it’s certain that Griffin is challenging ballots of people who voted for him, including loyal Republicans, and even local elected officials. 

Wade Leatham is a member of the Wayne County Board of Education and a Republican who has voted regularly in general elections and Republican primaries since 2004.  Leatham said he voted for Griffin to fill the Supreme Court seat. 

Leatham didn’t know Griffin was challenging his ballot until Friday, when a reporter told him he was on the list of people in Wayne County whose registration Griffin is claiming is incomplete. Leatham said he didn’t receive the state Republican Party postcard telling him his vote may be challenged.  

“It makes no sense to me,” he said. “I’m going to take a trip down to my Board of Elections today to find out what’s going on.”

The focus on voter registration forms without identifying government digits started months ago when conservative activist Carol Snow filed a Help America Vote Act complaint claiming that the missing information made elections vulnerable to ineligible voters. The Board of Elections voted unanimously to dismiss the complaint. 

The Republican National Committee and NC GOP used Snow’s complaint as the foundation of a lawsuit. But as the issue of incomplete registrations moved to the courtroom, the argument changed. Republican lawyers argued that people missing digits on their forms are not legally registered to vote.

A federal judge dismissed part of the Republican lawsuit in October. 

Arguing in federal court earlier this year, a lawyer for the state Board of Elections said there were no ineligible voters in the group of 225,000 because voters must show documents establishing their identity before casting ballots.

Griffin is repeating the GOP claim about invalid registrations as he protests tens of thousands of votes cast in the general election. 

The Board of Elections is set to consider Griffin’s protest on Wednesday, but the state Democratic Party last Friday filed a federal lawsuit to prevent the Board from throwing out batches of votes. Democrats said in the lawsuit that tossing votes en masse would violate the Constitution and federal law. 

If a court ends up agreeing with Griffin, it could create a problem for elected officials that are among the voters Griffin targets. One of the requirements to run for office is being a registered voter. 

Bob Hall, a voter advocate, found at least 21 current and newly elected local officials from both major parties on Griffin’s protest list. 

Matt Mercer, spokesman for the NC Republican Party, said any problems are the state Board of Elections’ fault because it did not address the issue of missing voter information when Snow first brought it up.  Lee County commissioner Taylor Vorbeck is another Republican whose vote is being challenged. (Photo: Leecountync.gov)

Republican Taylor Vorbeck, a Lee County commissioner, said the head of the Lee County GOP gave her the heads up that she was on Griffin’s list. 

“My response back was, ‘I don’t even know how that’s possible. If that’s the case, what is the next step?’”

She received the postcard from the GOP three days later. “That still didn’t tell me anything,” she said. 

Vorbeck said she updated her registration at the DMV in 2019 when she moved to Lee County and needed a new driver’s license. She’s voted in eight primaries and general elections since 2020. 

Everything was fine when she registered to run for office in 2022 at the Lee Board of Elections. “My registration was okay,” she said. “I brought all my information.”

Vorbeck ended up filling out a new voter registration form after she found out about Griffin’s protest. She said Friday she plans to find out more from the state Board of Elections. 

“None of it makes sense to me,” she said.

Am I on the list?

It’s relatively easy to find out if you’re on the list of voters challenged by Republican Supreme Court nominee, Judge Jefferson Griffin, by following the following steps:

1. Click here to go to a PDF document which list all protests submitted by Griffin to the State Board of Elections for voters alleged to have “incomplete registrations.”
2. Scroll down to find your county and see the names of all challenged voters listed in alphabetical order — note that it’s a big document with 1,282 pages.
3. You can also use the search function at the top of the document — look for the magnifying glass icon — where you can enter a name or part of a name. Note that search results may take a minute to load and some last names are very common and will come up multiple times.

Voters could not make sense of GOP notices

By law, voters must be notified that their ballots are being challenged. But voters said the GOP postcards with QR codes were inadequate.

Aidan Hunt, an overseas voter whose ballot Griffin wants to throw out, filed a formal objection to Griffin’s challenge.

The GOP postcards were confusing, could have been mistaken for junk mail, and were sent using U.S. Postal Service nonprofit marketing mail rather than first class mail, making it likely that voters wouldn’t find out about their ballots being challenged before the Dec. 6 Board of Elections deadline for responses, Hunt’s brief said.

Griffin is challenging ballots from Hunt and other overseas voters because they did not include photo ID.

Hunt’s brief said he was told explicitly that he did not need to include a photo ID.

“Let us make no mistake that discarding the ballots of citizens eligible to vote is the death penalty for democracy,” Hunt’s brief said.

“Unlike a protest of disqualified voters, this protest aims to destroy the voices of North Carolinians unequivocally eligible to vote by law due to an alleged requirement that could not have been known to them at the time of voting.”

Abraham Rubert-Schewel couldn’t make sense of the GOP postcard alert.

Rubert-Schewel, a registered Democrat, was born in Durham and voted in North Carolina for the first time in 2004, during his first year at UNC-Chapel Hill. He voted again in North Carolina in 2008 before leaving the state for work and school.  He registered again in North Carolina when he returned in 2020 and has been voting here regularly since then. 

He didn’t know what to make of the Republican postcard saying his vote may be challenged. He didn’t find any information on the GOP website. 

He learned the details later from Riggs’ campaign manager.

“You hear a lot about voter disenfranchisement and voter suppressions, but I never thought it would affect me, or it would potentially affect me,” he said.

“It’s disheartening and it’s exhausting. It feels like gamesmanship of the highest order that we really shouldn’t have to deal with.”

Following the trail from the QR code on what Dr. Amy Bryant described as a “nondescript mailer” addressed to her or “current resident” led to her finding her name on Griffin’s list. 

“It felt like a gut punch,” she said. “I’ve been voting legally in this state since 2011.”

She wasn’t sure she’d be able to attend the Board of Elections meeting on Griffin’s protest, but wants to do what she can to object to having her vote thrown out. 

“I take my role as a voter seriously. I try to vote in every single election and to be informed on all the issues,” Bryant said. 

“I have to believe that democracy is going to prevail and this tactic can’t work. It’s very disturbing and I want to make sure that my vote counts.”

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