{"id":1052142,"date":"2025-03-21T17:51:45","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T21:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/democrats.org\/?p=1052142"},"modified":"2025-03-23T17:52:26","modified_gmt":"2025-03-23T21:52:26","slug":"icymi-news-observer-nc-gop-chair-admits-republicans-are-attempting-to-throw-out-ballots-of-voters-who-did-nothing-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/icymi-news-observer-nc-gop-chair-admits-republicans-are-attempting-to-throw-out-ballots-of-voters-who-did-nothing-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"ICYMI: News &amp; Observer: NC GOP Chair Admits Republicans Are Attempting to Throw Out Ballots of Voters Who \u201cDid Nothing Wrong\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"449\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png?w=1024\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1050776\" srcset=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png 1101w, https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png?resize=300,132 300w, https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png?resize=768,337 768w, https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png?resize=1024,449 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Today, failed candidate Jefferson Griffin\u2019s disgraceful attempts to overturn a free and fair election continued with a hearing in the North Carolina <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/north-carolina-supreme-court-election-appeals-1ef1d9eac3f656068c9f108b40c8cea8\"><em>Court of Appeals<\/em><\/a><em> at taxpayers\u2019 expense. Yesterday, even the NC GOP Chair <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsobserver.com\/news\/politics-government\/article302284964.html\"><em>admitted<\/em><\/a><em> that Jefferson Griffin is attempting to throw away the votes of North Carolinians who \u201cdid nothing wrong\u201d in his campaign to deny Justice Allison Riggs her seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court. In response, <\/em><strong><em>DNC Deputy Communications Director Abhi Rahman released the following statement:&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAs disgraced, losing candidate Jefferson Griffin\u2019s attacks on democracy continued in North Carolina\u2019s Court of Appeals today, North Carolina\u2019s GOP chair said the quiet part out loud: The 60,000 North Carolina voters Griffin is attempting to disenfranchise \u2018did nothing wrong.\u2019 Griffin and Republicans\u2019 monthslong legal sham isn\u2019t about election integrity, it\u2019s about North Carolina Republicans sinking to any low imaginable to seize power \u2013 even if it means overturning a free and fair election.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsobserver.com\/news\/politics-government\/article302284964.html\"><strong>News &amp; Observer<\/strong><\/a><strong>: Interview: NC GOP chair defends challenge of 65,000 votes in Supreme Court election<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By Kyle Ingram&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>N&amp;O: The largest group of challenged voters are those who didn\u2019t have a Social Security number or driver\u2019s license number in the state\u2019s voter registration database. The GOP\u2019s argument is that, without these numbers, an ineligible person could fall through the cracks and get on the voter rolls. If that\u2019s the case, <strong>why have you not been able to identify a single ineligible person on that list over the last four months?<\/strong><strong><br><\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u00a0Simmons: It goes back to making sure that the data was consistent and complete.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>\u00a0With this particular set of individuals, I\u2019m very sympathetic to them because, again, they did nothing wrong.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>N&amp;O: The last bucket of challenged voters is military and overseas voters who didn\u2019t show an ID. The State Board of Elections approved an exemption to the ID requirement for those voters.<strong> It wasn\u2019t challenged at the time by the Republican Party or by Judge Griffin. Why is it a problem now? <\/strong><strong><br><\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Simmons: It\u2019s inconsistent with our state Constitution that mandates that individuals show up with an ID. So whether or not you show up in person, or whether you voted by absentee mail, you still had to be able to present a form of ID, and so Judge Griffin is asking for the courts to be able to provide clarification on that data set as well.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>N&amp;O: But why did he only challenge voters who came from six primarily Democratic counties in this bucket?<\/strong><strong><br><\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Simmons: That was the data that was available to us at the time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>N&amp;O: If you ultimately prevail in this case, and a court rules in Griffin\u2019s favor, what sort of precedent do you think this creates \u2014 not just in North Carolina but nationwide?<\/strong><strong><br><\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Is this setting up the possibility that any time there\u2019s a narrow loss, you can pick away at different issues with registration until you wind up on top? <\/strong><strong><br><\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Simmons: All that we\u2019re continuing to seek is guidance from the courts on what should or should not be allowed when we\u2019re talking about the participation of voters (and) making sure that every voter that has the right to participate in elections is allowed to do so. And those individuals that are in question, we (want to) have a resolution on their status.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>N&amp;O: <strong>But the lawsuit isn\u2019t just asking for guidance. <\/strong>The lawsuit has claimed that Judge Griffin is the rightful winner of the election and that he should be certified as the Supreme Court justice. What\u2019s the distinction there? <strong>That\u2019s not guidance, that\u2019s a chance.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today, failed candidate Jefferson Griffin\u2019s disgraceful attempts to overturn a free and fair election continued with a hearing in the North Carolina Court of Appeals at taxpayers\u2019 expense. Yesterday, even the NC GOP Chair admitted that Jefferson Griffin is attempting to throw away the votes of North Carolinians who \u201cdid nothing wrong\u201d in his campaign [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1052142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>ICYMI: News &amp; Observer: NC GOP Chair Admits Republicans Are Attempting to Throw Out Ballots of Voters Who \u201cDid Nothing Wrong\u201d - Democrats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/icymi-news-observer-nc-gop-chair-admits-republicans-are-attempting-to-throw-out-ballots-of-voters-who-did-nothing-wrong\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-21T21:51:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-03-23T21:52:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png?w=1024\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Adrianna Tomasello\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Adrianna Tomasello\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/icymi-news-observer-nc-gop-chair-admits-republicans-are-attempting-to-throw-out-ballots-of-voters-who-did-nothing-wrong\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/icymi-news-observer-nc-gop-chair-admits-republicans-are-attempting-to-throw-out-ballots-of-voters-who-did-nothing-wrong\/\",\"name\":\"ICYMI: News &amp; 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