In late October, like so many other college students, I turned out to check early voting off of my to-do list. I waited in line at a church near the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s campus, following a maze of arrows that led me to my polling station.
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I showed my driver’s license to the poll workers — complying with Republicans’ voter ID requirements — confirmed my registration details, and stepped into a booth to cast my ballot. Thinking that I had done my part, I moved on with my semester.
But just a few weeks ago, a friend sent me a screenshot of a long list of names that included my own. I was shocked to learn that I am one of more than 65,000 people in North Carolina whose vote Republican are attempting to undermine.
Two recounts have already affirmed incumbent Democratic Justice Allison Riggs’ lead of 734 votes in the election to serve on the North Carolina Supreme Court. Yet her opponent, Republican Jefferson Griffin, a judge on the state Court of Appeals, is still refusing to accept those results.
Griffin is trying to toss out over 65,000 votes based on inaccurate claims about these voters’ registration statuses. And he’s doing it in part by targeting college-aged voters like me. Young voters made up just around 10% of total voters who cast ballots in the state in 2024, yet, according to WUNC, we account for more than 24% of the votes that Griffin wants thrown away. That’s no surprise, given that he and other Republicans know too well that voters our age historically tend to lean Democratic.
It has been over three months since North Carolinians made their choice at the ballot box clear. This is now the last statewide election in the United States still waiting to be certified.
Griffin hasn’t been deterred by either recount, or by both Republicans and Democrats on the North Carolina State Board of Elections rejecting his claims — even though he still hasn’t been able to point to one example of an ineligible voter casting a ballot in 2024. Instead of conceding, he is shamefully wasting state resources on a court battle. In other words, Griffin is trying to change the rules of the game simply because he knows that all signs point to his defeat.
The stakes of this ongoing legal battle could not be higher. Allowing a candidate to target eligible voters and invalidate tens of thousands of ballots to tip the scales in his favor sets a dangerous precedent for modern disenfranchisement. If Griffin and North Carolina Republicans are successful in throwing out legal votes and overturning the results of this fair and free election, the floodgates could burst wide open, allowing other candidates to try and use this same playbook.
