Veterans in NC legislature slam ‘un-American’ effort to throw out military ballots
Democratic state lawmakers on Wednesday slammed Republican Jefferson Griffin’s effort to throw out thousands of military ballots cast in the Supreme Court election.
“They serve with honor so that the rest of us can live in a country where our votes and our voices matter,” Sen. Val Applewhite, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, said at a press conference alongside other lawmakers who served in the military. “And yet Judge Griffin — he seems to think it’s acceptable to deny them the very right that they risk their lives to protect. Let’s call it what it is: it’s an unspeakable, un-American betrayal.”
In his monthslong effort to overturn the results of the election, in which he appears to have lost to Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs by 734 votes, Griffin has pursued a variety of legal arguments aimed at invalidating ballots.
One of those arguments is that military and overseas voters who submitted their absentee ballots without voter ID should not have their votes counted — even though the State Board of Elections approved a specific exemption to the ID requirement for these voters. Griffin challenged over 5,000 voters for this reason, all of whom resided in counties that lean heavily Democratic.
In court filings, Griffin argues that the legislature “never delegated to the state board the power to make the major policy decision of whether to require photo identification from a class of voters.”
Griffin himself is a veteran and captain in the North Carolina Army Guard. Last month, ProPublica reported that he voted using military absentee ballots in previous elections.
Rep. Marcia Morey noted that one of the military voters who had her vote challenged was Capt. Rebecca Lobach, a Durham native and Army soldier who was killed last week in Washington when the helicopter she was co-piloting collided with a plane.
“She can’t fight to have her ballot count — so we will stand here and try to do it for her,” she said.
Lobach was one of three soldiers in the Black Hawk helicopter that crashed into an American Airlines flight near Reagan National Airport.
Griffin’s challenges have drawn wide condemnation from Democrats and democracy activists statewide.
Gov. Josh Stein commented on the ongoing saga at a Council of State meeting on Tuesday, telling reporters “She (Riggs) won the election. She won it when they did the first count, she won it when they did the second count, and she won it when they did the third count. So I think we could move forward.”
The state Democratic Party also plans to contact the 65,000 voters challenged in Griffin’s protests in a statewide phone bank this month.
While there is currently no mechanism for these voters to remove themselves from Griffin’s list, the party aims to ensure voters are informed about the challenge and “empower them to tell their stories and protect their votes,” according to an event page.
Wednesday’s press conference comes just one day after a federal appeals court ruled against Riggs and the State Board of Elections, denying their request to keep the case in federal court — for now.
That decision clears the way for North Carolina courts to take up the dispute and increases the likelihood that the state Supreme Court itself will hear the case. The high court has a 5 to 2 Republican majority and Riggs, who remains on the bench while the case continues, has already recused herself from the matter.
The Supreme Court already ruled in Griffin’s favor last month when it blocked the state from certifying Riggs as the winner in the election while the legal battles play out. In a later order, several Republican justices hinted that they may ultimately agree with Griffin’s challenges.
This story was originally published February 5, 2025 at 11:18 AM with the headline "Veterans in NC legislature slam ‘un-American’ effort to throw out military ballots."
