North Carolina County Board Knowingly Certified the Votes of Dead Voters
North Carolina’s Rowan County Board of Elections knowingly certified the votes of seven deceased voters on Tuesday, rejecting a protest to have their ballots removed from the final tally.
The fact that these individuals were dead was not in dispute. Rather, board members ultimately decide that the ballots would count in the 2024 election based on their “interpretation” of the law that governs voter eligibility, Rowan County Elections Director Sharon Main told The Federalist.
The voters in question had cast ballots either during early voting or via absentee voting prior to Election Day but had passed away after casting ballots and before Nov. 5, which could theoretically disqualify their votes. The controversy highlights one of the glaring problems with having a season of voting instead of a single day to hold an election. In recent memory, before elections took place over a period of months, none of the individuals at issue would have been able to vote because they passed away before Election Day.
The board “voted to dismiss the protest because it failed to show substantial evidence that any violation, irregularity, or misconduct sufficient to cast doubt on the results of the election had occurred,” Main explained. “It goes back to the interpretation of the law, because it talks about the eligible voter, and that’s what my board was hinging it on.”
Judge Jefferson Griffin, the Republican candidate for the state Supreme Court race, filed protests alleging multiple voter issues across the state. On election night Griffin was winning by about 10,000 votes, but his lead turned into a deficit in the 9-day period after Election Day in which North Carolina accepts overseas ballots and approves provisional ballots. (Read more from “North Carolina County Board Knowingly Certified the Votes of Dead Voters” HERE)
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