How to steal an election in America

A zombie lawsuit aims to overturn NC Supreme Court race

Ben Raderstorf

What would it look like to have a presidential election actually stolen in the United States?

In all likelihood, it doesn’t look like the violent events of four years ago this week. It’s not a military coup or an insurrection. Instead, it’s probably like what’s happening right now in North Carolina.

Here’s what’s going on: An incumbent Democratic Supreme Court justice, Allison Riggs, won her race by 734 votes. With about 5.5 million votes cast, that’s as narrow as it gets, but she won. Lots of recounts confirmed it. It’s done.

Except… the North Carolina GOP planted a backup plan in the system: a “zombie lawsuit” challenging the eligibility of certain voters who, per The New York Times, “unknowingly registered, sometimes years or decades ago, using erroneous forms that did not clearly require applicants to provide the last four digits of a driver’s license or a Social Security number as proof of identity.”

To stress: These are legitimate voters who were just given a bad form at some point. There's even good reason to believe that many did in fact provide this information, but it was simply not included in the records because of clerical error. Plus, the vast majority of them would have provided proof of identity, like their driver’s license, when they actually voted.

Crucially, the RNC and North Carolina GOP made no effort to expedite their lawsuit and get a resolution before November 5th. Like all zombie lawsuits, this was strategically timed not to change the election rules or challenge voter eligibility before the election — but rather to create a lever for throwing out results if the election-deniers’ preferred candidates lost.

Now, the loser of the Supreme Court race, Republican Jefferson Griffin, is aiming to do exactly that. He’s asking the state Supreme Court, which has a 5-2 Republican majority — 5-1 in this suit because Riggs has recused herself — to disqualify approximately 60,000 voters (even though, again, none of them have done anything wrong!) in hopes of reversing the outcome.

The Court has already ordered the North Carolina State Board of Elections to halt certification of the race, which was supposed to happen today. Riggs and the State Board are in federal court trying to halt further interference, with a decision likely coming next week. But if the federal court doesn’t act, the North Carolina Supreme Court — whose chief justice has publicly supported Griffin’s campaign — will decide whether to void the ballots of tens of thousands of North Carolinians.

In a race with a tiny margin and a list of targeted voters that overrepresents women and voters of color, the Republican-dominated Court may end up declaring the loser the winner for one of its own seats.

If this succeeds, it’s almost certainly a template for what future efforts to overturn elections will look like.

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