A Republican candidate for the North Carolina Supreme Court is hoping to eliminate 60,000 votes in his race. Will lawfare end one day?

Candidates in New Mexico and Tennessee have been suing each other for more than a month over alleged election fraud and irregularities.

All across the nation, candidates for the state House, state Supreme Court and school boards, as well as a city commission, have filed lawsuits regarding allegations of irregularities and fraud in last month’s election.

A New Mexico state House Candidate is seeking to recount her election. Meanwhile, a North Carolina Supreme Court Candidate is looking to throw away 60,000 votes in his race. Johnson City, Tenn. school board candidates, and a candidate for the commission are asking for a redo of the election in commissioner’s race.

New Mexico

Ali Ennenga is a Republican candidate running for New Mexico House district 44. She filed a contest to the election on Tuesday. Ennenga claimed that there were issues with same-day voters. Ennenga is suing Kathleen Cates for losing her race to the incumbent Democrat.

Ennenga stated, “The numbers don’t match.” There are many questions unanswered, from the confusion caused by same-day voting to the changes made in provisional ballot numbers following the canvass. This complaint is filed to demand transparency, and a manual recount of the votes.

Ennenga alleges in her complaint that the irregularities took place in the counties Sandoval, Bernalillo and Bernalillo.

Ennenga, in a complaint, wrote that “In New Mexico House district 44, the summation of precinct lines items does not equal precincts line items of the total votes cast.” Later, he added, “There’s a discrepancy” between the number of voters who cast their votes and the actual total of votes.

The county deputy clerk acknowledged that there were errors on Election Day at a Sandoval County Board of Elections last month. One of the errors was that a poll worker had mishandled an tabulator memory, causing data to be corrupted. The absentee board handled 32 provisional votes incorrectly, and the two early voting tabulators were not sealed properly. All county commissioners except one voted in favor of the election, despite the mistakes.

Ennenga’s opponent won the race with 9,166 votes, while Ennenga got 8,158. In her complaint, she claims that there’s a “discrepancy” of 463 ballots in Sandoval County.

North Carolina

The Republican candidate for the North Carolina Supreme Court election requested that the high court throw out 60,000 votes from the court elections last month.

Jefferson Griffin, a North Carolina Court of Appeals judge, made the request to the North Carolina Supreme Court. He had lost a week prior a challenge to reject these ballots in front of the North Carolina State Board of Elections. Griffin trails his Democratic opponent and current Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs by 734 ballots.

The lawsuit asks that the high court prevent the Democrat-led elections board of the state from certifying current election results or counting the 60,000 votes. The majority of the state Supreme Court is 5-2 Republican.

Griffin’s lawsuit states: “In the general election of 2024, the Board’s errors changed election results for this Court’s open seat.” The Board claimed that when those errors were raised in valid protests during the election, it was too late for them to correct their law-breaking.

Griffin and Republicans in the state argue that 60,000 ballots must be rejected, because they were fraudulently cast by voters who are not eligible. The state elections board, however, rejected this argument. Griffin would win the race if all the ballots were thrown out.

In the race for the State Supreme Court, more than 5.5 millions ballots were cast. A full machine count and a partial manual recount showed that Griffin was 734 votes behind Riggs.

Griffin’s legal team challenged hundreds of ballots across North Carolina’s hundred counties. These allegations included voters without a Social Security or driver’s licence number on their voter registration record, and overseas voters that failed to submit photo identification along with their ballots.

A spokesperson for the state elections board said that, although the NSCBE has rejected these challenges and “certified” the vote totals, it cannot issue a final certificate of election until all appeals and protests have been adjudicated.

On Thursday, the North Carolina Democratic Party criticized Griffin’s lawsuit.

Jefferson Griffin’s attack on voters has just gone one step further. He is hiding behind Chief Justice Paul Newby and he is now trying to achieve what’s been aiming for all along: getting the Republican-controlled state Supreme Court to toss out legitimate ballots and hand this seat to him,” the political party posted on X.

There have been several recounts, and they all confirm that Justice Riggs has won this seat with 734 votes. His behavior continues to show that he’s not fit to be on the Court. Concede now.”

The state Democratic Party filed a suit in federal court earlier this month to ensure that all votes in the race for state Supreme Court are counted.

The lawsuit claims that federal law prohibits states from rejecting ballots because voter registration documents lack Social Security numbers and driver’s licence numbers. The lawsuit also mentions that Republicans had filed a suit before the election in order to remove 225,000 voters from voter rolls because they did not have the information on their voter registration records. However, the case was dismissed by the federal court.

Griffin’s lawsuit claims that Griffin’s election challenge is “a question that our nation’s federalism system reserves to state courts and not federal courts”.

Tennessee

Washington County, Tenn. is being sued by school board candidates Ryan Berkley and Zaire Gary, city commission candidate Jay Emberton and Sam Pettyjohn who lost their races. They are asking for a re-run of the election in Johnson City. According to state law, the four plaintiffs brought the suit after the results of the election were certified in late November. They claim that 60 votes were incorrectly counted during the election in the city.

Nine candidates were running for three positions in the Johnson City Commission race. The last seat went to incumbent City Commissioner Joe Wise, who won by 38 votes over Aaron Murphy.

Carter County officials distributed 44 Johnson City ballots that were not voted by Johnson City voters. The voters who received incorrect ballots did not live in the city, but part of Carter County.

The county in which the elected board or commission meets must be the place where an election is held.