Democrats in the NC legislature denounce Judge Jefferson Griffin’s attempts to throw our military votes. (Screenshot from ncleg.net video feed)
Sen. Val Applewhite, a U.S. Air Force veteran from Cumberland County, called a Republican judge’s attempt to throw out votes cast by members of the military “an unspeakable, un-American betrayal.”
She was one of the Democratic legislators who spoke at a news conference on Wednesday denouncing Appeals Court Judge Jefferson Griffin’s efforts to throw out more than 5,000 votes cast by service members and citizens living overseas. They are among the more than 60,000 votes Griffin aims to toss in an attempt to win the 2024 race for a state Supreme Court seat.
Griffin trails incumbent Democratic Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs by 734 votes.
Griffin is trying to invalidate military and overseas votes from four heavily Democratic counties. He is challenging these voters because they did not include photo ID with their ballots. He is not challenging military and overseas voters from other counties.
The state Board of Elections does not require military and overseas voters to submit a photo ID.
Griffin’s lawyers maintain that the state elections board did not have the authority to exempt those voters from the state’s photo ID law. A hearing on Griffin’s lawsuit is scheduled for Friday morning in Wake County Superior Court.
The Campaign Legal Center filed a “friend of the court” brief on behalf of groups supporting voting rights for military members, veterans and their families. It’s wrong to change election rules after the fact to invalidate votes, Danielle Lang, CLC’s senior director for voting rights, said in an interview.
“These folks did everything they were told to do. They did everything by the book,” she said. “It’s Kafkaesque to say, ‘There was a secret rule. You should have provided photo ID.’”
Applewhite called Griffin’s attempt to throw out military votes “disgraceful.”
As a member of the Army National Guard, Griffin voted in 2019 and 2020 using military absentee ballots, ProPublica has reported. Photo ID was not required in those years.
Griffin did not respond to an email seeking comment.
“Among those votes he wants thrown out are the ballots of service members stationed across the country and around the world,” Applewhite said. “Individuals who swore an oath to protect the very democracy that Judge Griffin is now trying to undermine.”
Among the votes Griffin is challenging was cast by Capt. Rebecca Lobach, co-pilot of the Black Hawk helicopter that collided with a commercial plane over the Potomac River last week. She was a Durham native and cast a military absentee ballot. No one survived the crash.
Without mentioning Lobach by name, Rep. Marcia Morey, a Durham Democrat, called her “a brilliant and fearless patriot.”
“She can’t fight to have her ballot count,” Morey said, “so we will stand here and try to do it for her.”