We’ve been waiting, we’ve been waiting for a long time. Ever since the NC State Board of Elections certified most of the races in the state on November 26, we’ve been waiting. It turns out we have been waiting 161 days.
Finally, just today, Allison Riggs challenger, Jefferson Griffin conceded the election for a seat on the state Supreme Court. Continuously pivoting on the challenged votes, Griffin. initially target over 60,000 votes, then bounced around marking increasingly smaller numbers which were , suspiciously, directed at Democratic leaning counties.
We first wrote about the delay for the State Supreme Court way back in late December. At the time, many of us thought it would be sorted out shortly. We were wrong. The margin was small, 734 votes, and nobody disputed such a tight race merited some extra scrutiny.
But even after two recounts and the state election board denying challenger Jefferson Griffin’s protest, the matter continued to bounce around various courts and hearings as Griffin refused to concede.
As nearly everyone now knows, the the basis of the challenges were approximately 60 thousand votes that Griffin was challenging. When we began to look at the list of votes, we began to see people we knew on it. People who exist, and have routinely voted in local elections, sometimes for decades.
The list was available publicly. However, it was just a simple (large) text file. Not everyone has the skills or equipment to go in there and search. So we created the Griffin List, a tool that made it easier for people to find themselves on the list. We kept refining it, making it easier to use and even adding maps of voters who were on the list.
People began to look at the map, and noticing nearby neighbors or friends, began knocking on their doors to inform them (note, the map simply showed voters whose votes were being questioned, not whether they voted for Riggs or Griffin – that information is naturally not public).
We collected stories from some of the challenged voters. In all, our website had over one MILLION visitors. We were glad to play a part in helping inform voters to identify their presence on the list and also how voters, concerned about future votes could update their voter file.
This is a victory. However, the chilling effect is we believe this was a practice run to challenge future votes that are unwanted. The integrity of future elections are at stake, and we cannot lose track that the likelihood this effort will be repeated. We are massively disappointed that Jefferson Griffin took this long to concede. So much money has been spent on this. So much time has been stolen from courts.