Election Poker

The all Republican N.C. Supreme Court throws out over 11,000 provisional ballots in the November election.

The Democrats in the N.C. State Senate see that and raise the bet. Yesterday the state Senate voted 29-21 along partisan lines to make those 11,000 provisional ballots count.

"It is important to declare what was done was properly done," Sen. Dan Clodfelter, a Charlotte Democrat and the bill's main sponsor, said of the state's voting procedures. "The people whose ballots are in question here did nothing wrong. They acted in accordance with the instructions they were given."

The bill now goes to the state House, where a thin Democratic majority also (theoretically) prevails.

The low hum you hear from the east is the yowling of Raleigh Republicans, screaming that the Dems are trying to "steal" the election. Excuse me? This all started with a Supreme Court willing to disfranchise thousands of legitimate voters in an effort to make Bill Fletcher the new state Superintendent of Public Instruction. As always, the Republicans would much prefer the Dems to just sit still and take it.