By Elisabeth Strillacci

SALISBURY — An effort to overturn more than 65,000 votes in the state of North Carolina by a Republican candidate for the state Supreme Court brought out protesters across the state this past weekend and will again next weekend, including more than 100 people in front of the Rowan County Superior Court on Sunday afternoon.

Of the thousands Griffin has challenged, 420 voters in Rowan County are facing an effort to have their votes in the race between Democrat incumbent Allison Riggs and her challenger, Griffin, invalidated.

Griffin, who lost by 734 votes even after two recounts, has filed suit against the state’s Board of Elections claiming irregularities, including that nearly 65,000 people were not correctly registered to vote. The board had denied Griffin’s claims for lack of evidence before he filed the suit. Griffin has claimed in part that for many voters, their voter registrations did not contain either the last four digits of their social security number or their drivers’ license numbers. He has also challenged the validity of more than 5,000 military and overseas ballots, saying no photo identification was include, despite the fact that the board had already determined and made public their decision that photo ID was not required for overseas ballots.

On Sunday afternoon, the storms stopped as just over 100 people gathered on the front steps of the Rowan courthouse on North Main Street, carrying signs expressing their frustration with Griffin. The sun came out as speakers began to come to the microphone to share their personal experiences with the vote challenge.

And as one voter whose ballot is being challenged explained, many of the issues Griffin is raising were resolved long ago.

Mary Miller James moved to Salisbury more than 20 years ago, and has not missed a vote since. More than a decade ago, when she went to vote, she was told her registration was indeed missing that information, but the law at the time allowed that if she provided proper photo identification at the ballot box in November, her eligibility was guaranteed, not just that day but going forward permanently. She did, and since then, has never once had an issue with voting.

“As of January of last year, voter registrations have to have those numbers or they can’t be processed, but 20 years ago requirements were different, and I still met the standards required. Since then, I’ve voted in 33 elections over 23 years and never had an issue,” James said.

Until Griffin’s challenge, and now, she says, “he’s trying to tell me that what was correctly resolved under the law, all those years ago, was not actually resolved.”

James joined a group of protesters Sunday in an event organized by concerned local residents and by the group Common Cause, which according to its website is an organization that for 50 years has “worked day in and day out in defense of transparency, fairness and the right to be heard in our democracy.”

Gino Nuzzolillo, the campaigns manager for Common Cause, said what Griffin is trying to do “is ridiculous, absurd. We’ve worked in Salisbury for a long time, and when this issue came up, we knew we needed to make clear the outrage people across the state are feeling. And this not a partisan issue, but affects Republicans, Democrats, unaffiliated — all voters are impacted by this challenge. It’s an unpopular action and we need justices on the Supreme Court to hear that.”

James said she found out that her vote was one of those challenged when a friend called to tell her she was on the list. “I did not receive the postcard notifications that Griffin’s office allegedly sent out,” she said.

In addition to the distress among voters for the challenge to votes on this particular race, it has caused confusion as to why only this vote on their ballots are being questioned, and not their entire ballot, if the allegation is that they were not property registered to vote at all. And there is no information about how the numbers will be changed if the votes are eventually disqualified.

Both Nuzzolillo and James said no one has been able to say how things will be handled if the court decides to discount the votes, or why it is only this particular vote that is in danger.

“No one knows how they will handle this because we are in an unprecedented situation,” Nuzzolillo said. “It’s all just about power, and Jefferson’s cronies trying to hand him a victory.” But he said there has been no explanation of how the numbers can be adjusted.

“When I asked election officials in Raleigh, the said what the court could do is call for a whole new election,” said James, but she added that “only five to 10 percent of voters show up for second elections.” Rowan County election officials told James that the court “could order each county to pull the specific ballots, which are identified by number and then the number is connected to the individual, and look at each ballot to see who we voted for. But I find that alarming, because your vote is private. But that would be the only way they could know who to pull the votes from.

James said she asked if they pulled her ballot out and looked at it, could they or she then argue that her ballot is valid, and “they said they did not know, that they would have to follow to direction of the court.”

In addition, James said she asked why entire ballots were not being called into question, and was told “no other votes are being challenged, so no other votes are in question.” It would appear then that Griffin is not contesting entire ballots, but only the votes in his particular election. No one could explain to either James or Nuzzolillo how that works.

“We cast legal ballots, that is the bottom line,” James concluded.

“If Griffin disagreed with the laws governing registration, he could have filed a suit before the election or he could have worked to change the laws,” Nuzzolillo said. “But you even have Republican justices on the Supreme Court saying this kind of action invites “incredible mischief” according to Justice (Richard) Dietz.”

Following three other speakers, Geoffrey Hoy, the chair of the Rowan Democrats, led the group in a round of singing “This land is your land.”

“This is not a partisan issue, no matter how much it may surprise you to hear me say that,” he said, laughing. “This has nothing to do with party and everything to do with your rights as Americans.”

To date, in the most recent action in the case, on Feb. 7, a Wake County Superior Court judge ruled against Griffin. Judge William Pittman stated the state Board of Elections “was not in violation of constitutional provisions, was not in excess of statutory authority or jurisdiction of the agency, was made upon lawful procedure, and was not affected by other error of law.”

Griffin filed a notice to appeal with the N.C. Court of Appeals on Feb. 12.