Judge Toby Hampson Dissents

 

Judge Toby Hampson

Friday was a bad day on the thoroughly corrupt NC Court of Appeals. Two Republicans on a three-judge panel defied logic, agreed with the man who lost his race for the Supreme Court, and against all precedent ordered that some 61,682 challenged voters will have to prove their identities and their eligibility to vote last November. Last November. If any of those 61,682 voters don't get the message "to cure their votes" or otherwise don't answer to the demand, their votes will be thrown out. The Republican end-game, of course, is to declare Jefferson Griffin the winner.

Judge Toby Hampson, the 3rd justice hearing the case, dissented: 

To be clear: on the Record before us, Petitioner [Jefferson Griffin] has yet to identify a single voter—among the tens of thousands Petitioner challenges in this appeal—who was, in fact, ineligible to vote in the 2024 General Election under the statutes, rules, and regulations in place in November 2024 governing that election. Every single voter challenged by Petitioner in this appeal, both here and abroad, cast their absentee, early, or overseas ballot by following every instruction they were given to do so. Their ballots were accepted. Their ballots were counted. The results were canvassed. None of these challenged voters was given any reason to believe their vote would not be counted on election day or included in the final tallies. The diligent actions these voters undertook to exercise their sacred fundamental right to vote was, indeed, the same as every other similarly situated voter exercising their voting right in the very same election. Changing the rules by which these lawful voters took part in our electoral process after the election to discard their otherwise valid votes in an attempt to alter the outcome of only one race among many on the ballot is directly counter to law, equity, and the Constitution.