CHARLOTTE — Are 65,000 North Carolina votes valid?
The answer to that is now in the hands of a judge to finalize the race for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court.
Republican State Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin wants to throw out those votes in his battle against incumbent Justice Allison Riggs because he said their registrations didn’t have key information.
Channel 9′s Evan Donovan spoke with the elections board for the first time since this case headed to court.
The election directors said they are mostly in a wait-and-see mode until they get direction from the state board of elections.
However, they also said the challenged voters would have had to prove they were eligible before they could actually vote.
Griffin claims more than 60,000 votes from the November 2024′s election should be thrown out because a piece of their voter registration info was missing or incorrect: A driver’s license number or the last 4 of their Social Security Number.
On an older form, that info was not highlighted in red, showing it was required.
“They would’ve said their last 4 digits of their Social Security Number is ‘1234′ instead of ‘1235,’” said Michael Dickerson, director of the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections.
Dickerson said that doesn’t mean these are fraudulent voters.
Donovan asked, “Even if these voters didn’t have a complete registration, they would have had to provide information to make sure they were valid before they were allowed to vote?”
Dickerson said, “Correct. And starting now, in the last year and this year, you would’ve shown me a driver’s license, a photo ID, that would’ve been proof. And there’s only certain items we can use.”
At a march on Monday, half a dozen of the challenged voters told Donovan they were very real and so were their votes.
“There was not a process put in place to make sure that the issues were fixed,” said Susan Niles Redwine, a challenged voter. “So I did not do anything wrong. I showed my ID. I live in the county. I’m an American citizen. I check off all the lists.”
“The first time I voted in 2012 in the presidential election, they did make me show my ID because of that problem,” said Rebecca Schisler, a challenged voter. “And they said this fixes the problem. It’s resolved now, and you don’t have to show this again. And I went on voting in 15 elections since then with no problem until now.”
Griffin is challenging another 5,000 votes that didn’t include a photo ID when they were sent in by overseas voters or members of the military.
“That’s particularly disgusting,” said veteran Paul Ruona.
Donovan spoke with multiple county elections directors and despite the challenges, they’re confident the votes are valid.
Donovan asked Dickerson, “There are more than 6,000 names on the list of challenged voters by Griffin in Mecklenburg County alone. Are you confident those voters would have had to show documentation before they actually voted?”
“Oh, everybody did this year. I’m perfectly confident of that,” Dickerson said.
Griffin’s challenges are currently making their way through the courts.
We asked multiple North Carolina legislators for an interview to see if they were OK with them.
We got no comment, but several said they were sending the requests to Senate leader Phil Berger.
“The equities are with the voters there,” Berger said Wednesday afternoon.
Berger said he didn’t think they had a way of knowing their registrations were deficient.
VIDEO: Local voters gather to protest lawsuit to toss out votes in NC Supreme Court race
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