(The Center Square) – Litigation has been filed against the North Carolina State Board of Elections, saying the authority of the state’s election process has not provided information in a timely manner to candidates in the state Supreme Court race.
Jason Simmons, chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, said the information has not come for multiple days. The state board, by law, on Friday at 5 p.m. was to have received canvass totals of all 100 counties.
From Election Night final unofficial totals with all of the state’s 2,658 precincts reporting, Republican Jefferson Griffin has gone from a lead of 9,851 to trailing Democrat Allison Riggs by 70 votes – with six counties still unofficial just before 5 p.m. Monday.
Just before 7 p.m. Friday, the state board sent a release saying Monday meetings of county boards were scheduled in Chatham, Craven, Cumberland, Forsyth, Randolph and Yancey.
At the time, 13 counties were still listed unofficial. At 5:01 p.m., that total rose to 19.
State general statute requires the county canvass information by 5 p.m. on the 10th day after Election Day.
Deadline to request a recount is noon Tuesday. The state certification is scheduled for Tuesday of next week.
Plaintiffs are the North Carolina Republican Party, The Jefferson Griffin Committee, and Griffin. Defendants are each of the five members of the State Board of Elections in their official capacity and Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell in her official capacity. This is the first lawsuit against the panel since the election.
“The State Board of Elections has not earned any benefit of the doubt regarding their actions and their slow walking of critical information against increasingly tighter time frames illustrates why this lawsuit was filed,” Simmons said. “We will keep all options available as needed to ensure their compliance with state law.”
Closely watched all year has been the bench seat on the state’s high court between Riggs and Griffin. Riggs is trying to win her first judicial election and as an incumbent no less, appointed by Gov. Roy Cooper nine months after he had appointed her to the Court of Appeals following her 14-year stint with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice.
On Election Night with 100 counties unofficial and all precincts reporting, Griffin led by 9,851 votes. Since then, counties have finalized absentee by mail and provisional ballots. Before 5 p.m. on Monday, Riggs had moved 70 votes ahead of the more than 5.5 million cast, a difference reversal of more than 9,900.
In North Carolina, recounts for statewide races are allowed if the difference between the candidates is either less than 10,000 votes or 0.5% of votes cast, whichever is less.
The state board has not said if the delay in county canvassing will push back that deadline or the certification process next week. The failure of counties to meet Friday’s deadline was not addressed in its release.
In a sampling of 1,000 North Carolinians between Aug. 7-20 by the Catawba College Center for North Carolina Politics & Public Service, just more than 7 in 10 had confidence in election counts and in the integrity of this year’s election.
Between July 22 and Sept. 12, seven lawsuits were filed against the state board of Democrats Alan Hirsch, its chairman, Jeff Carmon and Siobhan Millen; and Republicans Stacy Eggers and Kevin Lewis; and Bell.
The state board has been litigated because of decisions related to ballot access involving the Justice For All Party, and the We The People Party; voter roll maintenance twice; freedom of speech involving John F. Kennedy Jr.; a memo of instruction to county boards of elections in conflict with absentee by mail ballot state laws; and acceptance of mobile phone identification cards involving the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
