NORTH CAROLINA — A group of voters that took legal action against the North Carolina State Board of Elections for denying a third-party ballot access in the upcoming general election will go to court next week.
READ MORE: ‘Injustice for all’: State board of election approves RFK party for ballot, denies Cornel West
On behalf of the Justice for All Party — endorsing professor and activist Cornel West for president — three Fayetteville residents filed a motion requesting an emergency injunction for a court order that would put the political party on the ballot. This comes after the board rejected the party in a 3-2 vote on July 16.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle issued a July 30 hearing notice, to take place in Elizabeth City. The motion was filed Monday by Johnny Ortiz, Jimmie Rogers and Weldon Murphy who claim their voting rights were violated when the board voted against adding the Justice for All party.
Yet, the board voted on the same day, 4-1, to allow Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of We the People party, as a third-party candidate. However, the North Carolina Democratic Party has filed a lawsuit in Wake County, saying Kennedy has touted running as an independent and registered as one in North Carolina. The NCDP says he skirted North Carolina rules by forming a party to gain easier access on the ballot (read the lawsuit here).
North Carolina — considered a battleground state in this year’s election — requires new parties gather signatures from 0.25% of voters from the previous general election for governor with at least 200 from each congressional district or approval from at least 70% of other states in the preceding presidential election to gain ballot access. However, for unaffiliated candidates, the signature requirement increases to 1.5% of voters.
The state Democratic Party is asking for its emergency motion to be decided by Aug. 16. The first ballots need to be issued Sept. 6 to county boards of elections, which will begin mailing them to voters who request absentee ballots.
The Justice For All voters, Ortiz, Rogers and Weldon — whose records show support only for Democratic candidates in the past — are represented by Phillip Strach, of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough. The firm is frequently used by the Republican party for cases involving issues such as election law and gerrymandering.
The complaint reads the plaintiffs are voters intended to support West and Justice for All’s effort to get on the ballot. The lawsuit adds NCSBE’s actions were unconstitutional and also demands West is granted ballot access by Aug. 19.
The three plaintiffs claim the NCSBE unfairly denied the Justice for All party even though it gained all 13,865 necessary signatures required by state statute for approval. Justice for All exceeded this number by more than 3,000 signatures. The suit says the board’s decision “is not justified by any legitimate or compelling state interest.”
In the July 16 NCSBE meeting, the board determined the signatures for the Justice for All party to have been obtained fraudulently based on findings from an investigation conducted by board staff. The investigation entailed interviewing people who signed the petition to determine whether or not they understood the intentions of the petition they signed.
Of the 17,000 petition signers, 49 were the only ones able to be reached out of the total 250 signers that staff contacted. Staff reported 18 said they did not sign the petition, three did not remember signing, and roughly eight said they were not given the true intent of the petition to put third-parties on the ballot.
Democratic board members viewed the results as evidence of the petition’s illegitimacy, while the two Republican members said the investigation did not cover enough signers to provide accurate results.
By contrast, We the People Party was accepted on the ballot on July 16. Investigation results of 22 We the People Party petition signers presented at the NCSBE meeting indicated that voters were aware of the nature of the petition they signed.
In addition to the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, conservative groups and politicians, including Rep. Jake Johnson (R-Polk) and nonprofit group the Fair Election Fund, also see the board’s actions as suspicious.
The NC General Assembly’s House Reform and Oversight Committee called a hearing to question the motivations and actions of the board and their ruling. It was held for four hours Tuesday.
The committee, led by Republican co-chairs Rep. Johnson and Rep. Harry Warren (R-Rowan), is intended to investigate government leaders and to hold them accountable. Rep. Johnson sad in a statement announcing the hearing:
“We need answers as to why three parties that had seemingly met the requirements to be on the ballot, were rejected,” he said. “If this ruling was politically motivated, as is perceived, we owe it to the citizens of North Carolina to bring that to light.”
In late June, the state board previously denied the Constitution Party, wanting to look into its filing address, as well as the We the People and Justice for All petitions, to determine whether signatures were legitimate.
The board approved the Constitution Party — endorsing candidate Randall Terry, an anti-abortion activist — July 9. It also approved We the People on July 16, but also denied Justice for All during that meeting.
ALSO: RFK Jr., Cornel West still not on NC ballot, state BOE investigates petitions to add them
West and Kennedy are both considered candidates that could dilute votes for the Democratic Party.
An ad campaign from the Fair Election Fund alleges the Democratic board members purposely are denying parties that could threaten the Democratic party’s candidate and that the board has made “shady backroom deals.”
NCSBE chair Alan Hirsch and executive director Karen Brinson Bell were questioned by the House committee this week.
Hirsch defended the board’s rulings in the hearing, but acknowledged the “political currents” of the decision. He also said that due to the short timeframe of the investigation and lack of response from signers and petition gatherers, the findings were not “statistically perfect.”
Both he and Brinson Bell said the concerns over the fraudulent signatures were brought to their attention by county election boards who verify them, not outside influences.
At Tuesday’s hearing, election analyst Andy Jackson, from the conservative nonprofit think-tank John Locke Foundation, spoke for roughly 16 minutes on why the two candidates deserved to be on ballots and the board’s potential persuasion from outside influences in their decisions.
“Democrats have raised an army of lawyers to thwart the rise of third-parties they believe might cost President Biden, now presumed candidate Harris, votes in November,” he said.
The lawyers Jackson is referring to are part of the Clear Choice Action Group, a Democratic super-PAC represented by Elias Law Group, who presented a video to the board in a June 26 NCSBE meeting. It urged the board not to approve third-parties on that ballot.
Jackson said the founder of the PAC, Pete Kavanaugh — former deputy campaign manager of Biden’s 2020 campaign — said in a March 14 Washington Post article that it was imperative “no third-party or independent candidate has any chance of winning a state in November,” and that the election should be a “clear choice” between Trump and Biden.
He also highlighted the board’s past rejections of other third-parties, including the No Labels Party last year and the Green Party in 2022. The Green Party eventually gained ballot access through a lawsuit.
Following Jackson’s presentation to the committee, several representatives questioned his findings, including Rep. Maria Cervania (D-Wake). Cevania did not think Jackson was presenting in an impartial manner.
“I find it unfortunate that I had to piece through a partisan testimony,” she said. “I urge you to maybe look back on your testimony, to look at it more in an unbiased way to find solutions, and not use partisanship to be able to solve this.”
Cervania, a biostatistician who has also has participated in collecting signatures for political campaign petitions, questioned Jackson’s statistical analysis of the investigation of the Justice for All Party’s petition signatures. She said Jackson’s analysis of the margin of error in the investigation and his claim the board staff’s methods are inaccurate may be incorrect due to his lack of statistical background. While Jackson had training in statistical methods as part of his PhD in political science, he clarified that he is not a statistician.
Johnson noted there may be a follow-up to the hearing, though no dates were set.
Port City Daily reached out to Johnson to ask when the follow-up hearing will be held, what action the committee may take against the board and why only one analyst was chosen to speak but did not receive a response by press; the article will be updated upon response.
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