"Unbelievable and egregious": NC voters fear retroactive disenfranchisement after court ruling

[marmar]

(Salon) Five months after the 2024 election, voters in North Carolina are still awaiting a certified conclusion in the state's contentious Supreme Court race after their ballots were swept up in Republican candidate and Appeals Court Judge Jefferson Griffin's election challenge seeking to overturn his November defeat by throwing out 65,000 votes.

Spring Dawson-McClure, a Hillsborough resident who was informed a few weeks after the election that her vote was being challenged, told Salon the challenge has made her "incredibly disheartened" and "angry," especially given its disparate impact on women and voters of color. As Griffin's effort to claim victory against Democratic incumbent Justice Allison Riggs, to whom he lost by just 734 votes, drags on, Dawson-McClure said that it's hard to remain hopeful about the outcome. One of the latest major updates in the case — a ruling from the state Court of Appeals that threatens to retroactively disenfranchise thousands of challenged voters should it ever take effect — has only worsened her disappointment.

"I don't know any other way to feel about it than it is a direct assault on our democracy," Dawson-McClure said in a phone interview. "To me, it's like this next level that they apparently feel emboldened and entitled to disenfranchise 60,000 voters so he can win."

The North Carolina Supreme Court issued an 11th-hour order in the case Monday that temporarily blocked the implementation and enforcement of the appellate court's remedy to what they ruled is the state Board of Elections' unlawful and erroneous counting of tens of thousands of votes in the Supreme Court election. But the decision and its cures, paused pending the Supreme Court's decision on whether to take up the case, has already left some North Carolina voters reeling as the threat of disenfranchisement appears more real. ......................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/04/11/unbelievable-and-egregious-nc-fear-retroactive-disenfranchisement-after-ruling/