Washington, D.C. — Today, Eric H. Holder, Jr., the 82nd Attorney General of the United States and Chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), issued the following statement in response to the North Carolina Supreme Court’s ruling in Griffin v. North Carolina State Board of Elections, which throws out legally cast ballots of overseas voters and targets military members from Democratic counties to again prove their identity within 30 days to ensure the votes they cast in November are counted: 

“This shocking decision abandons the judiciary’s most basic role, to protect the rights of the people, and sanctions an outright attempt to steal an election. The North Carolina Supreme Court’s Republican majority has, for naked partisan reasons, cherrypicked whose votes count and whose do not. It is the height of political arrogance to tell military members who serve and sacrifice for our country, and other voters, that their votes and those of their family members are questionable. 

“This is not a complicated case. It should have been resolved quickly to reject the state appeals court’s blatantly partisan and shameful decision in its entirety and re-affirm what multiple recounts, the state Board of Elections, and the trial court all concluded: that Justice Riggs was re-elected in a free and fair election and that all of the more than 65,000 ballots called into question must be counted—just as they would have been in any other election heretofore. By refusing to do that, the Republican majority on this court has demonstrated that their conclusion was based on ideology rather than the facts, the law and prior practice. This opinion is both a disgrace and legacy defining for those who put their names behind it.”

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