NC Supreme Court election results still being contested (12-11-2024--Hour1)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content, like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] So what the hell is going on with our state Supreme Court race? I've been accumulating stories here and there, and now it's like, I don't know, three quarters of an inch thick. I shall read to you every one of them. No. But I've been trying to keep track of it. There's just so many different angles and elements to the story because we've got the recounts and we have now court challenges.

[00:00:56] And we then had a press conference yesterday where the chair of the North Carolina Democrat Party, Anderson Clayton, y'all, who's all rural, y'all, she's going to get all the rural votes, y'all, because she says y'all, y'all.

[00:01:15] And that did not happen, by the way. But that was the plan. She literally, I think, broke a microphone.

[00:01:24] She was screaming. She was channeling her inner fire and brimstone preacher.

[00:01:34] Maybe she was taking a page from Reverend William Barber of the Moral Monday Movement marching. I don't know.

[00:01:40] But, yeah, she got all worked up at a press conference and then, like, the microphone seemed to cut out on her.

[00:01:47] I don't – I've never heard this sort of problem.

[00:01:53] I don't know. This technical difficulty. I've never heard this happen before.

[00:01:58] But I get maybe – or maybe there was somebody running the board and they killed her, Mike, because she was going to break it or something.

[00:02:04] I don't know. But I've got the audio.

[00:02:07] But let's start with a piece of WRAL, one of the House Organs for the North Carolina Democrat Party.

[00:02:17] The state elections officials scheduled to meet today to hear arguments over a protest by Republican Jefferson Griffin.

[00:02:28] All right? So Griffin is a court of appeals judge.

[00:02:33] He challenged the Democrat Allison Riggs.

[00:02:38] Allison Riggs, the election – no, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

[00:02:42] Allison Riggs is on the Supreme Court because another judge, Mike Morgan, stepped down before the conclusion of his term.

[00:02:56] Mike Morgan stepped aside. He's a Democrat.

[00:02:59] He stepped aside so he could challenge Josh Stein.

[00:03:04] But the Democrat machine would not allow that.

[00:03:08] Josh Stein won the primary. Mike Morgan did not.

[00:03:12] And so now he is off the bench.

[00:03:14] But that meant that Roy Cooper had a judgeship to fill.

[00:03:20] And he put Allison Riggs there.

[00:03:22] Allison Riggs, formerly of the – if I recall correctly – the Southern Coalition for Social Justice.

[00:03:31] And that is an organization that was founded by North Carolina Supreme Court Judge Anita Earls.

[00:03:40] This is an activist, leftist organization.

[00:03:44] And they basically just sue Republicans all the time.

[00:03:49] Okay? That's how they fundraise.

[00:03:51] That's how they spend their time.

[00:03:53] And it's all for democracy.

[00:03:54] Because, of course.

[00:03:56] So Anita Earls and Allison Riggs, from the Southern Coalition for Social Justice,

[00:04:01] left-wing activist group, never described, by the way, as a far-left group or a leftist group,

[00:04:07] never described as that by media.

[00:04:11] They are the two Democrats on our state Supreme Court.

[00:04:16] Anita Earls also appointed to the state Supreme Court originally.

[00:04:21] I believe she did run again.

[00:04:23] I think she's run again and won her seat in an election.

[00:04:27] But she was the incumbent running.

[00:04:30] Also appointed by Roy Cooper.

[00:04:33] Just imagine for a moment everybody's favorite game.

[00:04:36] What if it was a Republican, right?

[00:04:39] What if a Republican governor had appointed a couple of right-wing activist lawyers onto the bench?

[00:04:48] Could you imagine that?

[00:04:51] So anyway, state election officials meeting today to hear arguments over this protest,

[00:04:56] one of the protest complaints, by Griffin, who is trailing.

[00:05:02] All right?

[00:05:03] Griffin, you may have thought, won that race.

[00:05:06] And truth be told, he probably did too.

[00:05:09] On election day, he was up by over 10,000 votes on election day.

[00:05:17] And then they kept counting and counting and counting and counting.

[00:05:21] And lo and behold, now he is down 730 some odd votes to Allison Riggs.

[00:05:30] This is still an uncalled race.

[00:05:34] Because it's so close, he gets to file for recounts.

[00:05:42] Two recounts have already been done.

[00:05:46] And both of those recounts found Allison Riggs still leading by 730 some odd votes.

[00:05:55] The race is not official yet, according to WRAL.

[00:05:58] Griffin is still pursuing a separate challenge that seeks to have officials throw out more than 60,000 ballots cast in this year's elections.

[00:06:11] Based on what GOP leaders claim are instances of fraud or irregularities.

[00:06:18] I don't know every single one of the 60,000 votes.

[00:06:23] Just for the record, I don't know every single circumstance surrounding every single one of the 60,000 votes that they're trying to get tossed.

[00:06:33] But the problem goes back like 20 years.

[00:06:38] And it is another example of the State Board of Elections not being able to maintain proper records.

[00:06:48] That's what it seems like to me.

[00:06:50] But, I mean, what do I know?

[00:06:51] I'm just a radio host.

[00:06:52] So, just going by the news reports, reading what I can read, remembering what I can remember.

[00:06:59] It seems like they have messed up somehow on their list maintenance.

[00:07:07] I don't know if that means that the 60,000 votes should be tossed or should not be tossed.

[00:07:13] I don't know if the 60,000 votes, if all, some, part, none, I don't know if they are fraudulent or irregular or they should not have been counted.

[00:07:23] But I got to say, there's one particular cohort in this 60,000 group that's kind of weird to me, which is people who have registered to vote in North Carolina but have never lived here.

[00:07:35] That's kind of weird.

[00:07:37] Is that weird to you?

[00:07:38] That seems weird to me.

[00:07:40] Now, maybe there's a perfectly reasonable explanation.

[00:07:44] I can think of one off the top of my head here.

[00:07:49] I don't know.

[00:07:50] Somebody gets a job relocation and the job is actually an overseas job, but the headquarters of the company is in North Carolina.

[00:07:59] So, they, quote unquote, move.

[00:08:02] They set up a residence in North Carolina, but they don't actually ever really live here, I guess.

[00:08:09] Right?

[00:08:10] They live overseas for their job, but they claim residence in North Carolina, so they vote absentee by mail in an overseas ballot.

[00:08:18] Is that the idea?

[00:08:23] So, the State Board of Elections meets today to discuss Griffin's request.

[00:08:27] The board could dismiss the protests or, if problems are found, order corrected ballot tallies.

[00:08:34] They could order another recount.

[00:08:36] They could even order a new election, which that's not going to happen.

[00:08:40] Just as a heads up here, the State Board of Elections is three to two Democrat.

[00:08:44] They are not going to order a new election be held.

[00:08:49] They are looking to give Allison Riggs the victory here.

[00:08:53] However, decisions by the board can be appealed to state courts, and this is what has Democrats very, very worried.

[00:09:03] Because while they may act in some sort of partisan fashion, or at least a perceived partisan fashion,

[00:09:10] they know for certain if it goes to the state courts and works its way through state courts,

[00:09:15] that means it goes to the state Supreme Court, and that's a Republican majority court.

[00:09:19] And so those Republicans, unlike the Democrats, would totally behave in a partisan way.

[00:09:27] Other protests filed by Griffin and the legislative candidates are being first considered by county boards.

[00:09:33] So the North Carolina Republican Party filed a lawsuit last week to try to move up the meeting and have it held sooner,

[00:09:44] potentially before a federal judge could rule on a different lawsuit that was filed by the Democrat Party.

[00:09:52] The Democrat Party is trying to force the Board of Elections to throw out Griffin's challenges for democracy, obviously.

[00:10:02] But the GOP's request for an earlier hearing was denied by a state trial court judge,

[00:10:09] and then again on appeal yesterday by the Court of Appeals.

[00:10:15] Which would kind of undermine that whole, oh my gosh, they're going to act in partisan fashion argument from the Democrats.

[00:10:22] But anyway, that doesn't matter.

[00:10:24] State Republican Party spokesman Matt Mercer said that he believes state election officials have been uncooperative.

[00:10:30] No!

[00:10:32] This state board of elections?

[00:10:33] That's just crazy talk.

[00:10:37] Griffin led Riggs by about 10,000 votes on election night, but that lead dwindled and then flipped

[00:10:44] as qualifying provisional and absentee ballots were added to the totals,

[00:10:48] and that's when Griffin requested a recount.

[00:10:52] That was the first recount.

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[00:11:56] All right, so this North Carolina State Supreme Court race, Jefferson Griffin wanting to move

[00:12:03] on up, but sorry, that's a terrible, that was a terrible pun.

[00:12:09] Running against Riggs, the incumbent, and again with these Dickensian names for stories.

[00:12:16] Jesus, it's...

[00:12:18] So Riggs was down by like 10,000 votes on election day.

[00:12:23] Then they started counting all of the provisional ballots and the absentee ballots, and then

[00:12:27] Riggs was up by 734 votes.

[00:12:30] That was after the first recount finished last week.

[00:12:34] So Jefferson Griffin asks for another recount in which officials investigate a random sampling

[00:12:40] of ballots and compare what they see on the paper ballots to the results tallied by the ballot counting machines.

[00:12:48] Right?

[00:12:49] So a random sampling.

[00:12:51] So the State Board of Elections announced that the second recount found an additional 56 votes for Griffin

[00:13:03] and an additional 70 votes for Riggs.

[00:13:08] So the elections folks and the Democrats, but I repeat myself, they're like, well, see, so it didn't change the outcome.

[00:13:17] She's up by now 14 more votes.

[00:13:20] So I guess that's 748 votes.

[00:13:24] See, so no more recounts are necessary.

[00:13:27] And maybe I'm the only one in state media that sees this as...

[00:13:35] This isn't the story.

[00:13:37] The story is that you did another random sample recount, and you somehow or another ended up with 126 votes

[00:13:47] that were not counted by the machines.

[00:13:50] What the hell is going on?

[00:13:54] Because 126 votes in a random sampling from a couple of counties...

[00:13:59] What happens if you count 100 counties?

[00:14:02] How many other votes are you going to find?

[00:14:05] What's going on here?

[00:14:06] All right, hey, real quick.

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[00:14:37] Got a message from Sharon Lockard who says,

[00:15:00] Yes, that's one of the explanations for why the vote counts change.

[00:15:08] From the machine count to the random sampling hand recount.

[00:15:13] So if you were bubbling and you were like, Oh, you know what?

[00:15:17] I feel Democratic today.

[00:15:18] I'm going to vote for the Democrat instead.

[00:15:19] And you cross out your vote for the Republican and then you vote for Riggs, the Democrat.

[00:15:24] Then the person looking at that will say, Oh, they totally meant to do that.

[00:15:30] Or they crossed it out for you.

[00:15:32] No, I'm kidding.

[00:15:33] I'm kidding.

[00:15:34] I'm not making any allegations.

[00:15:37] Now, under the state law, Griffin would only Griffin, the Republican judge here,

[00:15:42] trying to unseat Allison Riggs.

[00:15:44] He's down by like 750 votes.

[00:15:47] Griffin would only be allowed to call for a third recount if the second one showed that he chipped away at Allison Riggs' lead.

[00:16:01] But he did not.

[00:16:02] She picked up 14 votes.

[00:16:05] So now he does not get to ask for a recount, apparently, under state law.

[00:16:09] Now, the state board of elections made an announcement yesterday that they will not order a full hand recount of all ballots in the race.

[00:16:20] Because a partial recount resulted in additional votes for Riggs.

[00:16:24] So he's not going to be able to do that.

[00:16:27] State board just started meeting.

[00:16:29] State board of elections just started meeting about 10 minutes ago to.

[00:16:33] Well, they were scheduled to.

[00:16:35] To consider election protests that have been filed by the Griffin campaign, by the Republican campaign.

[00:16:42] Now, here's how Carolina Journal reported it.

[00:16:47] This was from Monday.

[00:16:50] Republican North Carolina Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin renewed his request for action from the state's second highest court.

[00:16:58] A Wake County Superior Court judge turned down his request to mandate a deadline for state election officials to address Griffin's election ballot challenges.

[00:17:08] In the court filing on Monday, Griffin's lawyers resubmitted a request from the state court of appeals.

[00:17:16] Griffin serves on that court of appeals.

[00:17:19] It's 15 members.

[00:17:22] But they typically break it down into three judge panels, right?

[00:17:27] The court issued an order Monday afternoon, setting a deadline yesterday for responses.

[00:17:35] They apparently have not agreed to do that now.

[00:17:38] He lost in that appeal.

[00:17:42] I am going to play the audio.

[00:17:45] So.

[00:17:46] That's the that's the state board of elections process that's going on with the recounting and the challenging and such.

[00:17:54] Now, there are also.

[00:17:56] Court cases.

[00:17:58] OK, there are court cases.

[00:18:01] And.

[00:18:03] The court had the court filing from Griffin said by denying the petition, the state board of elections is now permitted to decide the election protests on an arbitrary deadline.

[00:18:15] And the time for action by the board is likely to be arbitrary.

[00:18:19] Eighteen years ago, the General Assembly commanded the state board to issue rules that govern the timing of deliberations and issuance of decisions.

[00:18:31] Have you noticed?

[00:18:33] I pointed this out that it seems to me that as we have become more technologically advanced, we somehow cannot figure out how to run elections better.

[00:18:46] It's gotten worse.

[00:18:48] This is a choice.

[00:18:50] This process and the way it is run.

[00:18:53] These are choices.

[00:18:55] People are making decisions that allow this process to continue in the manner it is continuing.

[00:19:03] In defiance of the statute, the complaint goes on to say the board has not issued any such rules in its brief to the superior court.

[00:19:12] The board of elections.

[00:19:13] The board of elections flaunted its own violation of the statute, asserting, quote, there are no statutory or rule based timelines for the state board to consider protest appeals.

[00:19:24] There are supposed to be rules, but there aren't.

[00:19:28] And the fault lies with the state board of elections.

[00:19:32] And the superior court refused to speed it up.

[00:19:40] And so that's why he appealed to the state court of appeals.

[00:19:44] He said Griffin's lawyers say the foot dragging is inexcusable.

[00:19:51] Judge Griffin was seeking.

[00:19:54] The court to compel the state board of elections to issue a final decision on his three categories of election protests.

[00:20:02] And he wanted it done by yesterday at 5 p.m.

[00:20:06] So what are the three categories?

[00:20:11] Incomplete voter registrations, meaning people who registered to vote without providing a driver's license number or the last four digits of a social security number.

[00:20:23] In the Supreme Court contest, over 60,000 ballots, even though they had never were over 60,000 ballots were cast, even though they had never provided the statutorily required information to become lawful voter registrants.

[00:20:39] Under state law, unless someone is lawfully registered to vote, he cannot vote.

[00:20:44] Now, they're not saying that every single one of these is an example of fraud.

[00:20:47] They're saying they're supposed to be these identifying numbers attached to the ballots, to the voters.

[00:20:54] And they're not there.

[00:20:56] So what are we supposed to make of this?

[00:20:59] The law says you have to have this identifying information attached to the voter, which is attached to the ballot.

[00:21:06] And they don't have it.

[00:21:10] First category.

[00:21:11] Second category.

[00:21:12] People who have never resided in North Carolina or anywhere else in the United States.

[00:21:20] These voters self-identify themselves as stating on a form that I am a U.S. citizen living outside the country and I have never lived in the United States.

[00:21:30] So these are what's called never residents.

[00:21:33] Our state constitution limits voters for state offices to people who actually reside in North Carolina.

[00:21:41] Nonetheless, the state board allowed approximately 289 people to vote in the protested election who have never lived here.

[00:21:49] That's a problem.

[00:21:50] I think we probably should have some guidance on that.

[00:21:53] Why are we allowing people to vote under these circumstances if it's illegal?

[00:21:58] And the third category.

[00:22:00] No photo ID.

[00:22:02] It's well known that photo ID is required of all voters, both those voting absentee ballots and those voting in person.

[00:22:09] Yet the state board decided not to require photo ID for absentee ballots cast by voters who live overseas.

[00:22:16] State law, however, does not exempt overseas voters from the ID requirement.

[00:22:22] Thousands of such ballots were unlawfully cast in the election.

[00:22:26] That's a problem.

[00:22:28] That is a problem.

[00:22:30] If the state law requires ID, you as the board of elections don't get to ignore the law.

[00:22:37] This is why Republicans are moving the state board of elections appointment power from the governor over to the state auditor.

[00:22:47] This state board of elections cannot be trusted if this is what they're doing.

[00:22:53] So much of journalism really is about institutional knowledge, knowing the history of the people, the policy, the disagreements, the arguments.

[00:23:06] Particularly when you are covering politics.

[00:23:12] And in this debate, in this North Carolina Supreme Court recount debate, these complaints and the proceedings and all of that.

[00:23:24] It's important to remember what happened low those many years ago in 2020.

[00:23:31] You'll recall there were protests in the state Supreme Court race between the incumbent Democrat Supreme Court Chief Justice Sherry Beasley and her challenger Republican judge Paul Newby.

[00:23:49] Newby won.

[00:23:51] Newby beat her by a couple hundred votes.

[00:23:56] Excuse me.

[00:23:56] Newby.

[00:23:58] Beasley, a Democrat, filed 89 protests, spanning almost every county in which she alleged that thousands of votes rejected by county boards should have been counted.

[00:24:10] However, a closer look at the more than 3,200 ballots that Beasley sought to include were almost exclusively Democrat and unaffiliated voters.

[00:24:20] I'm sure that was just a coincidence.

[00:24:24] Newby was unofficially the winner and led Beasley by 406 votes out of close to 5.4 million votes cast.

[00:24:32] Following machine and hand-eye recounts, Beasley conceded as Newby emerged as the winner by a margin of 401 votes.

[00:24:43] So this little bit of history is important because the Democrat Party chair, Anderson Clayton, references Sherry Beasley and her recount efforts.

[00:24:58] Now, think about that.

[00:25:00] We have the top judge in the state on the state Supreme Court, the chief justice, tried to get ballots counted.

[00:25:08] And if I recall correctly, some of them were absentee ballots with no postmark on them.

[00:25:14] Don't know when they showed up.

[00:25:18] She wanted those counted.

[00:25:21] And they had identified a whole bunch of these ballots to count.

[00:25:24] And look at that.

[00:25:25] They're all Democrat votes.

[00:25:27] That's an unaffiliated.

[00:25:28] There's some unaffiliated in there, too.

[00:25:34] Also, if Allison Riggs prevails, this according to the story by A.P. Dillon at the North State Journal, NSJOnline.com, should Riggs prevail and retain her seat?

[00:25:46] She is still facing a pending ethics complaint lodged against her over campaign ads in which she appears to take a position on the issue of abortion.

[00:25:57] And that is potentially a violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct.

[00:26:02] Because she ran ads about topics that would be coming in front of her as a as a judge.

[00:26:09] So there's that.

[00:26:11] But also a tweet from A.P. Dillon, who is covering the Board of Elections meeting, started up at 1230 this afternoon, that the chairman of the State Board of Elections.

[00:26:29] Who is a Democrat.

[00:26:31] Is allowing one of the members of the Board of Elections named Millen to participate in the hearings.

[00:26:40] Now, the Republican challengers had requested that Millen recuse himself or herself rather because her husband is an attorney.

[00:26:54] For Allison Riggs.

[00:26:59] Again, I point out the Dickensian nature of the names involved in this story.

[00:27:07] I'm old enough to remember when a woman by the name of Kimberly Strack was fired as the as the director at the State Board of Elections.

[00:27:19] When Roy Cooper took over, Strack was a lifelong investigator in the Board of Elections.

[00:27:29] She was elevated to that position by Pat McCrory to lead the Board of Elections.

[00:27:35] And she got fired.

[00:27:36] Why?

[00:27:37] Well, she had investigated some Democrats and they are pretty salty about all of that.

[00:27:41] So, you know, but for but for the record, it was because her husband was a lawyer who represented some Republican members of the legislature.

[00:27:54] And so they fired her.

[00:27:59] Now, see, it's different.

[00:28:03] Because reasons.

[00:28:05] Democrats, basically.

[00:28:06] It's different when Democrats do it.

[00:28:08] All right, that'll do it for this episode.

[00:28:10] Thank you so much for listening.

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[00:28:25] Again, thank you so much for listening.

[00:28:27] And don't break anything while I'm gone.