North Carolina Republicans win major battle to steal election
By 
Rucho is one of the worst decisions in the mostly ignominious history of the Supreme Court, and one reason for that is that extreme partisan gerrymanders tend to breed further contempt for the democratic process. Once you get used to the idea that government should be chosen by the governing party rather than the electorate, it’s hard to stop:
A North Carolina appeals court sided Friday with the trailing Republican candidate in an extremely close state Supreme Court election, a ruling that could flip the result of the nation’s only 2024 race that is still undecided.
In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the intermediate-level Court of Appeals ruled that ballots — likely tens of thousands of them — were wrongly allowed in the tally, and it gave some of those voters about three weeks to provide additional information or see the ballots get removed. The disputed ballots are believed to favor Democratic Associate Justice Allison Riggs, who, after two recounts, held a 734-vote lead over Republican Jefferson Griffin in their race, which saw over 5.5 million ballots cast.
The judges on Friday found that the State Board of Elections got it wrong in December when it dismissed Griffin’s election protests. The ruling is expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court.
The dissent is blunt, and unanswerable:
To be clear: on the Record before us, Petitioner 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.
[…]
Nor is the remedy invented by the majority in accord with North Carolina law or appropriate to the situation. The majority orders the Board allow a 15-day “cure period” for the majority of challenged voters. The proposition that a significant portion of these 61,682 voters will receive notice and timely take curative measures is a fiction that does not disguise the act of mass disenfranchisement the majority’s decision represents.
They even did the Bush v. Gore “we know we’re committing fraud” thing:
While the majority’s opinion is unsigned, I note this decision is not per curiam and I dissent in full.
Barring an act of conscence on the part of the Republican-controlled top North Carolina appellate court or the federal courts — LOL — this election will be outright stolen by retroactively changing the rules for one election held in North Carolina and none of the others.