After the high from the Raleigh Hands Off rally this weekend had faded a bit, one of my friends asked, “Well, what do we do now?” I have some suggestions I will be offering in later posts. But right now, probably the most important thing North Carolina voters can do is to ensure that they aren’t on the so-called “Griffin list”…and if they are, to fix it.

My wonderful homeschool friend Tina was also at the rally, carrying a sign with the graphic above. It refers to an election travesty that the LOSING Republican candidate for the NC Supreme Court is trying to foist upon North Carolina voters. Justice Allison Riggs won the statewide election for a seat on the NC Supreme Court by close to 800 votes (validated through several recounts). Losing Republican Jefferson Griffin took a page out of Donald Trump’s playbook and has been been contesting the results in the courts, asking the state to throw out about 68,000 votes for having “incomplete” information. Those 68,000 votes are mostly targeted towards the communities that have a history of voting for Democrats.

Sadly, on Friday April 4th, the day before the rally, the NC Court of Appeals, on a 2-1 partisan ruling, agreed with Griffin’s case. They said that those votes that lacked “complete” information, such as a photo ID, should not be counted.

To be clear, the State Board of Elections states that these voters followed all the procedures required of them at the time. This is the first case in the nation where the courts have ruled that votes shouldn’t be counted because the courts are adding additional requirements imposed AFTER the election was over and their candidate LOST.

One of the biggest issues, as I understand it, is with military service men and women serving outside of the country. North Carolina has one of the highest percentages in the country of its population serving in the military, with major training bases for 3 out of the 4 services. Thus, tens of thousands of North Carolina citizens are currently serving abroad. Many have been serving our nation abroad for several years.

This election, there was a new requirement when voting in person that you had to show a photo ID. However, apparently that was not a requirement for military personnel serving abroad. But it seems what these Republican justices decided was that any overseas absentee ballots sent without a photo ID, even though that wasn’t the law at the time of the election, are “incomplete” and thus should not be counted.

That is how Republican Jefferson Griffin and the Republican members of the NC Court of Appeals are honoring our NC military personel across the globe.

Now, it is not only the military abroad that are being targeted. But to me, that is the most shameful of this entire charade.

However, the Court included an option to make things right. Once their decision goes into action, anyone whose vote is being questioned–the so-called “Griffin list”–has 15 days to provide any missing information. If they provide the missing information and their voter information is complete, then their votes will be included.

Justice Allison Riggs is appealing the case, and hopefully higher courts will overrule that decision. Therefore, the 15 day deadline hasn’t kicked in yet. But in the meantime…

Check to see if you are on the “Griffin list.” If you are, give them whatever additional information they are seeking. Then make sure your friends and family and neighbors and community members do the same. You can use the search engine on this site: https://thegriffinlist.com.

This is personal to me. If you remember, the mailing of absentee ballots was delayed by a couple of weeks when candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. sued to have his name taken off the NC ballot AFTER the deadline and AFTER the ballots had been printed. But again, a Republican majority court ruled in his favor, costing North Carolina citizens over a million dollars in reprinting fees and about a two week delay. But two weeks made all the difference in our family, because our son was going to study abroad in India and that meant his absentee ballot wouldn’t arrive before his departure. And I can tell you, sending things to India is expensive, slow, and unreliable. So we had to jump through hoops to allow him to vote in this election. I finally found an obscure way he could vote online, and he finally found a computer that allowed him to do so. It took a good bit of time and energy. It did not include a requirement for a photo ID. I assume that many military personnel also used this process to vote.

So his was the first name I checked. Fortunately, he was not on the list. I guess it was because we did send a photo ID with his request for an absentee paper ballot (which never did arrive in India, as far as I know). I checked all of our immediate family, and we are all clear.

Still, I urge everyone to check. And if your name or the name of someone you know shows up, then follow the steps to complete that voting record. The steps to do so are here: https://triangleblogblog.com/2025/04/05/how-voters-on-the-griffin-list-or-anyone-concerned-about-their-future-votes-can-update-their-voter-file/

I hope this all thrown out and won’t matter. But I don’t want anyone in North Carolina to be disenfranchised, regardless of for whom they voted.

If you would like to see a short video interview with Justice Allison Riggs and what she is doing to fight for North Carolinian voters, here is a link:

If you want to keep up with developments about this case, you can sign up for updates at: https://www.riggsforourcourts.com

You can also give money to fund the legal battle to protect those votes. You don’t even have to live in North Carolina! Because believe me, if they get away with here, they are going to try it other states as well.

So my friends, that’s one thing you can do to keep moving the pro-democracy movement forward. I’ll be back with some other ideas soon. Special thanks to my friend Tina for shining a spotlight on this important issue.

NOTE: There is a little more information on my next post, The Griffin List: An Addendum.