Stephanie Sy:
After more than 5.5 million ballots were cast in the Tar Heel State, this contest came down to 734 votes separating incumbent Democrat Allison Riggs from her Republican challenger, Jefferson Griffin.
Griffin says there were voting irregularities that could have changed the outcome.
Here to explain the dispute and the stakes is Rusty Jacobs, voting and election integrity reporter for public radio station WUNC.
Rusty, it’s a pleasure to have you on the “News Hour.”
Judge Griffin, the Republican challenger, is asking for 60,000 votes — he’s asking the court system to throw these votes out. Now, that’s just about 1 percent of the votes, but in a contest that I understand came down to two one-hundredths of a percent, that matters.
What irregularities is he alleging?
Rusty Jacobs, Voting and Election Integrity Reporter, WUNC: He’s alleging most — in most cases that 60,000 of these ballots or so were cast by voters who were not completely registered or registered appropriately.
Essentially, it comes down to this issue over registration forms that predated what was the Help America Vote Act, the HAVA Act. Early 2000s, it passed. Once that law passed, registration required a voter to either provide the last four digits of their Social Security number or a driver’s license number.
Some voters in North Carolina registered with forms that predated passage of that act. This issue has been brought up before and has been dismissed by a federal district court judge and in the lead-up to the most recent election. The state Board of Elections also reviewed allegations that these people were improperly registered and therefore ineligible to vote, and they dismissed that claim, and they looked into it.
In all these cases, voters who cast ballots in the most recent election had to provide either photo I.D. or fill out an exception form. All of those ballots had to be reviewed by local boards of election. Anybody who cast a ballot, those ballots were reviewed and their eligibility was confirmed.
