The Democrat-run North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) voted to toss out election protests that challenged the legitimacy of voters who have never resided in the state or country, as well as those who are improperly registered to vote.

In nearly every challenge, board members voted 3-2 along party lines to reject the protests from Republican state Supreme Court justice candidate Judge Jefferson Griffin, along with a handful of state legislature candidates, allowing incumbent Democrat Justice Allison Riggs to win the election.

On election night, Griffin was winning by about 10,000 votes, but his lead was slowly wiped away as absentee and provisional ballots started to trickle in, giving Riggs a lead of less than 800 votes.

‘Winners … Should Be Determined by Eligible Voters’

Griffin filed multiple protests, but the most far-reaching ones taken up by the NCSBE were those that challenged voters who had not provided the proper identification documentation when registering to vote, overseas voters who did not provide photo identification with their ballots, and overseas voters who have never resided in the United States or in North Carolina.

Griffin also filed a motion to disqualify Democrat board member Siobhan Millen because her husband, Pressley Millen, is a lawyer representing Riggs for the election, and his law firm, Womble Bond Dickinson, is also representing Riggs in the protest. Mr. Millen has not made an appearance before the board in relation to the protest.

“The Millen family stands to benefit financially from the election-protest proceedings currently before the Board,” the motion stated. “Mr. Millen owns a partnership share at Womble, which Ms. Millen disclosed and reaffirmed on her 2023 and 2024 Statements of Economic Interest (‘SEI’).”

Board Chair Alan Hirsch, another Democrat, decided that Mr. Millen’s job as Riggs’ lawyer was not a conflict for Mrs. Millen’s oversight of the protest of Riggs’ own election.

“We filed these protests because we believe the winners of these elections should be determined by eligible voters, and only by eligible voters, Craig Schauer, counsel for Griffin, said at the Wednesday afternoon meeting of the NCSBE.

Before the votes on the individual protest issues were taken, the board essentially tossed out all of them on a technicality, claiming that Griffin and the other protesters did not sufficiently notify voters that their votes were being protested, as is required by North Carolina law. Griffin contacted voters by sending a postcard with a QR code that linked to the information, but the Democrats on the board claimed that people do not know how to use QR codes.

A ‘Self-Inflicted Wound’

The protests pointed to thousands of voters having cast ballots without registering in compliance with North Carolina law, which requires that an individual provide a driver’s license or the last four digits of a Social Security Number. Hundreds of thousands of voters have been able to successfully register to vote without the documentation, and many place the blame at the feet of the NCSBE, which provided misleading registration forms.

A large group of voters who are not in compliance with the identification requirements have also been the subject of lawsuits from the Republican National Committee, and several parties have asked the NCSBE to fix the issue that they created by finding the noncompliant citizens and asking them to provide the identification.

The board has refused to do so, which was noted several times in the hearing Wednesday, where Republican board member Stacy Eggers IV said that the protest over the noncompliant voters is a “self-inflicted wound.” His Republican colleague Kevin Lewis said that “the board itself has been negligent in its failure to collect this information in years past, and also in its, in not having any efforts to correct that situation.”

Philip J. Strach, counsel for one of the legislative protestors, added, “Had the board followed a cure process that we recommended, we wouldn’t be here today on this claim. We would not be here, and we practically begged the board to do it. They didn’t do it. That’s why we’re here today.”

‘Mind-Blowing’

One of the primary concerns in North Carolina about overseas voters is that, in addition to federal elections, the law allows them to cast ballots in state and local elections, which Griffin’s team argued should not be the case considering they will never be affected by those laws. Griffin did not challenge overseas voters’ eligibility in federal elections, which ostensibly could affect them.

North Carolina allows the never-resided voters to use the last known address of their parents to register to vote, a situation Lewis said is “mind-blowing,” and Schauer argued that the provision is an affront to the state’s constitution.

“The North Carolina Constitution requires that an individual be a resident in order to vote in a state election. Despite this requirement, hundreds of overseas voters indicated in their voter applications that they have ‘never lived in the United States,’” Schauer said. “If you’ve never lived in the United States, it is impossible for you to be a resident of North Carolina. Yet a loophole in North Carolina law has allowed these overseas people who admit to having never lived in North Carolina to vote in our elections. Any overseas voter who cast a ballot despite admitting they never lived in our country was ineligible to vote in our state elections.”

“The fact that their parents were residents or are residents of North Carolina doesn’t establish residency of the individual, of the child,” he added. “In other words, you can’t inherit your parents’ residency. Residency is … specific to an individual.”

Overseas voters are allowed to vote by less secure means, like email and fax, and are afforded even more leniency by a special administrative rule that explicitly states they do not need to provide photo ID with their ballot upon casting it, which is the requirement for all other North Carolina voters.

Griffin’s protest contended that the NCSBE administrative “rule is invalid, however, since it conflicts with the correct interpretation of the statutes” and “would collapse under the state constitution anyway.”

“Voter ID has long been a topic of public and legal debate, but that debate has ended: North Carolina now requires voters to present photo IDs when they vote,” Schauer said in Wednesday’s meeting. “That applies whether you’re voting in person at the polls or voting by an absentee ballot. Despite voter ID being a universal requirement, overseas voters have been allowed to vote without providing a photo ID or an appropriate exemption. Overseas voters are not excused from the laws that apply to all other voters. Any overseas voter who cast a ballot but did not provide photo ID was ineligible to vote in our state elections.”

The ID issue is the only protest that the board members voted unanimously against, but Lewis and Eggers said they were only bound to do so given prior rules from the board that Lewis said was passed upon “bad advice.”