About 100 people gathered at the Market House in Fayetteville on Sunday to protest against North Carolina Court of Appeal Judge Jefferson Griffin and his ongoing effort to cancel the ballots of more than 66,000 voters across the state from the November election.
One of the protesters, Shaun McMillan, was arrested on an allegation that he obstructed a Fayetteville police lieutenant attempting to perform his duties as a law enforcement officer. There was tension between protesters and the police as McMillan was arrested, but afterward, the event proceeded peacefully.
The 66,000 voters that Griffin is challenging include 2,304 in Cumberland County, according to a spreadsheet from the North Carolina State Board of Elections. By a show of hands, nine people attending Sunday’s protest said their ballots were among those being challenged.
That exact total of ballots statewide is unclear because there are a few voters whose names are listed twice, said Bryan Warner of Common Cause NC. Common Cause NC, a grassroots voting rights group, organized this protest and others throughout the state.
After listening to several speeches that described and criticized the situation and Griffin, the protesters marched around the Market House with chants of “Count every vote.” One of the voters whose voter registration is being challenged, said “Count my vote.”
Griffin, a Republican, is challenging the 66,000 voters in his effort to overturn the results of his race against incumbent Associate Justice Allison Riggs, a Democrat. He trails Riggs by 734 votes out of more than 5.54 million cast. He has not conceded. (Check whether your ballot is being challenged here.)
With the narrow margin, removal of some if not all of the ballots could turn the results in Griffin’s favor.
This race from the 2024 election is the only one left to be decided in North Carolina. The matter is pending with litigation in the North Carolina courts. Democrats have expressed concern that the Republican majorities on the North Carolina Court of Appeals and the North Carolina Supreme Court will side with Griffin in order to expand the Supreme Court’s Republican majority, from 5-2 to 6-1.
Voters angry their ballots could be canceled
Democratic voter Mike Simmons of Gray’s Creek told CityView he learned in January that he is on Griffin’s list of challenged voters.
“I was like, ‘Wait a minute, that’s me!’” Simmons said. “I registered back in 2012, when I was getting ready to retire from the Army. But my thing is, ‘Why now, after all this time?’”
Simmons said Griffin challenged his eligibility to vote because the N.C. Board of Elections did not have his driver license number or the last four digits of his social security number listed in the state’s voter database. However, Simmons said, he was told the state didn’t require him to provide these when he registered to vote.
Simmons said he considers the ballot challenge a way to disenfranchise voters.
Kim Hardy of Cumberland County is the second vice chair of the North Carolina Democrat Party. She said her ballot was challenged, too.
“This is a targeted and desperate attempt to overturn a fair election,” she told the crowd. She said the challenged ballots have a disproportionately high number of young voters and people of color. An analysis of Griffin’s ballot protests by the Raleigh News & Observer found that Black voters were twice as likely to have their ballots challenged as their white counterparts. The analysis also found that people between the ages of 18 and 25 made up the largest age group of those with challenged ballots.
“This is not about justice. This is about power, plain and simple,” Hardy said. “And somebody who does not understand the meaning of justice should never be allowed to serve as a justice.”
Hardy told CityView her voter registration and ballot are being challenged on the premise that the Board of Elections did not have her driver license number or the last four digits of her social security number in its records. But when she visited the Board of Elections to rectify this, she said, she found the elections office already had that information.
Griffin’s list of allegedly ineligible voters includes voters registered as Democrats, independents and Republicans. One of the Republicans is a Republican member of the Lee County Board of Commissioners, who was elected in 2022. If Griffin successfully cancels the commissioner’s voter registration, she might be forced to leave office, as elected officials must be registered voters.
Alleged problems with voter registrations and ballots
Why is Griffin challenging the ballots of tens of thousands of North Carolina voters?
In the case of more than 60,000 of them, Griffin says the state’s voter registration database does not list either the voters’ driver licence numbers or the last four digits of their social security numbers. A law enacted in 2004 says voters are supposed to provide one of these numbers when they register to vote.
The North Carolina Board of Elections said in an affidavit it has reviewed this group of voters and concluded Griffin is mistaken about 29,971 voters. Those voters had provided either a driver license number or social security number, the affidavit says.
Another 1,196 voters reported when they registered that they did not have either a driver license or a social security number. Under federal law, those people were still allowed to register to vote, and Griffin’s challenge would not stand against them, the affidavit says.
Griffin has raised other issues with about 5,900 voters who cast ballots as civilians or military personnel living overseas who vote by mail or electronically.
- Some didn’t send a copy of their photo ID when they submitted their ballots. The state Board of Elections said that group of voters wasn’t required to submit copies of their photo IDs. Griffin contends the Board of Elections is wrong about the requirement.
- Some are the adult children of overseas North Carolina residents who never lived in North Carolina. These people have been allowed to vote in North Carolina since they and their families maintained a home address here. Griffin says that group should not be allowed to vote here.
Protester arrested
Fayetteville police arrested protester Shaun McMillan early during the protest. McMillan over the years has been a frequent critic of the Fayetteville Police Department and instances in which officers have used deadly force.
McMillan was in charge of a group of six volunteer marshals at the protest, said Sandhills Organizer Lisette Rodriguez of Common Cause. She led the event. The marshals were on hand for safety and security, she said.
Fayetteville police Lt. Tony Gayles had McMillan arrested. Gayles told Rodriquez that McMillan broke the law by blocking Gayles four times when Gayles was attempting to enter the protest area to speak with someone in charge and tell them to stop using amplified sound. The protest did not have a permit for sound amplification, as required by city ordinance.
A DJ had been playing music, someone was using a bullhorn, and there was a podium with a microphone.
McMillan said later on Sunday, after he was released from custody, that he had been the designated liaison with the Police Department for this event, so Gayles should have spoken with him about the sound.
The protest continued without amplified sound after McMillan was taken to the magistrate at the Cumberland County Detention Center.
McMillan told CityView he is scheduled to appear in court on Monday morning. He has a $500 unsecured bond, he said, meaning he does not have to pay $500 unless he skips his court date.
Despite his arrest, “It was a beautiful event. It was an absolutely beautiful event that was really about fair elections and justice,” McMillan said. “Besides that disruption by police, it was a peaceful event. That’s a good thing. I’m walking away just with optimism about it, about that call to justice still being heard.”
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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