DOJ sues North Carolina elections board over the need for accurate voter rolls

Fresh off a state Supreme Court race getting settled half a year after the election, the North Carolina State Board of Elections has been sued by the United States of America.

The Department of Justice filed the litigation on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina Western Division. The plaintiffs say the state was in violation of the intent of the Help America Vote Act, colloquially called HAVA.

The state, a release says, “used a state voter registration form that did not require a voter to provide identifying information such as a driver’s license or last four digits of a Social Security number. Voters were then added to the state’s voter registration roll without the required information, and many of these voters remain on the registration rolls without it.”

Observers of politics and the laws around it forecast that despite Judge Jefferson Griffin eventually losing an arduous battle to Judge Allison Riggs earlier this month, his fight would help candidates in the future.

The race attracting more than $2.3 million in donations was the last unresolved from Nov. 5 when on May 7 the Republican appellate judge conceded to the Democratic incumbent. On Election Night, with 2,658 precincts reporting, Griffin led Riggs by 9,851 votes of 5,540,090 cast. Provisional and absentee ballots that qualified were added to the totals, swinging the race by 10,585 votes.

Board of elections decisions and court rulings at Wake County Superior Court, the state’s Court of Appeals and Supreme Court, and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals protracted the final decision.

The protests of Griffin involved about 65,000 ballots. The state board denied all six, including registration records of voters such as lack of providing either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number.

Other ballots protested and denied by the state board included voters overseas who have never lived in the United States, and for lack of photo identification provided with military and overseas voters.

“Accurate voter registration rolls are critical to ensure that elections in North Carolina are conducted fairly, accurately, and without fraud,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The Department of Justice will not hesitate to file suit against jurisdictions that maintain inaccurate voter registration rolls in violation of federal voting laws.”

While the lawsuit names current members of the election board, the actions prior to May 1 came from the previous group. Named in their capacities in the complaint are Sam Hayes as executive director; Republicans Francis DeLuca, Stacy Eggers and Bob Rucho; and Democrats Siobhan Millen and Jeff Carmon. DeLuca is the chairman.

The group when Griffin’s protests were denied included Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell; Democrats Alan Hirsch, its chairman, Jeff Carmon and Siobhan Millen; and Republicans Stacy Eggers and Kevin Lewis. For the majority of protest decisions, the voting by this group was 3-2 along party lines.