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Voters should pick their politicians

Writer's picture: Jim BuchananJim Buchanan

With the rise of partisan gerrymandering of North Carolina’s General Assembly and congressional districts, the lament that “voters should choose their politicians, not the other way around’’ became a phrase hard to avoid across the Old North State.

Hard to avoid, but easy to ignore. Heavy redistricting saw three incumbent Democratic U.S. House members decide to forgo bids for reelection in the last cycle, shifting the makeup of the state’s delegation from 7 Democrats and 7 Republicans to 10 Republicans and four Democrats. For those keeping score at home, that essentially accounts for the slim hold on the U.S. House Republicans now enjoy.


That change was in part made possible by another change in the 2022 elections, when the N.C. Supreme Court shifted from a 4-3 Democratic majority to a 5-2 Republican majority, helping clear the way for successful legal challenges to the 2022 state maps.


That court is now itself in the national spotlight thanks to one election for the high bench that has yet to be decided.


In November, incumbent Justice Allison Riggs won reelection by 734 votes, out of 5.7 million cast. (Such tight races aren’t new in N.C.; in 2020 Republican Paul Newby ousted incumbent Democratic Justice Cheri Beasley by 401 votes). Two recounts confirmed that Riggs had won.


But Griffin has refused to concede, with a strategy that essentially boils down to throwing out votes that were already counted. Legal challenges have ping-ponged around various courts and the outcome – and who will decide it – hanging in the air. Could it go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court? It could; who knows?


The arguments for tossing votes in one race isn’t predicated on voter eligibility, that the voters in question aren’t U.S. citizens or such. They’re not based on anything those voters did wrong, in fact. Instead, the arguments center on forms being filled out incorrectly in the past. The vast majority of the voters being questioned showed up, showed their ID as mandated by state law, and walked away assuming their votes were to be counted and accepted.

No number of lawsuits arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin makes it acceptable that those votes can be taken away.


Yet here we are.

This challenge is wrong and opens the door for huge mischief. Outgoing Gov. Roy Cooper said, "If they are successful in this scheme, there will be copycat lawsuits across this country for races where they don't like the results."


The N.C. Supreme Court’s decision to allow Griffin to present his case was a 4-2 decision (Riggs recused) with Democrat Anita Earls and Republican Richard Dietz dissenting. Dietz got right to the heart of the matter by saying, "Permitting post-election litigation that seeks to rewrite our state’s election rules — and, as a result, remove the right to vote in an election from people who already lawfully voted under the existing rules — invites incredible mischief. It will lead to doubts about the finality of vote counts following an election, encourage novel legal challenges that greatly delay certification of the results, and fuel an already troubling decline in public faith in our elections." 


Should Riggs’ election be upheld, it won’t impact the state’s high court GOP majority. It could have an impact down the line; three GOP seats will be on the 2028 ballot. Should Riggs be ousted there would be no way Democrats could flip the court before the 2030 census and next round of redistricting.


In the long run that’s beside the point in this saga.


Voters should pick their politicians, not the other way around.


Especially not after the fact.


Jim Buchanan is an editor of The Sylvia Herald, former Editorial Page Editor for the Asheville Citizen-Times and writes for Carolina Commentary.

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