Election lawsuits continue as candidates in some states allege election irregularities, fraud

More than a month after Election Day, lawsuits over elections in New Mexico, North Carolina, and Tennessee are ongoing as candidates allege election irregularities and fraud.

Candidates for a state House, a state Supreme Court, a school board and a city commission have all filed lawsuits across the country regarding alleged issues, irregularities, and fraud that occurred in last month’s elections.

A New Mexico state House candidate is seeking a recount in her election, as a North Carolina Supreme Court candidate is looking to throw out 60,000 ballots in his race, and Johnson City, Tenn., school board candidates and a commission candidate are requesting a redo election in the commissioner’s race.

New Mexico

Republican candidate for New Mexico House District 44, Ali Ennenga, filed an election contest on Tuesday, alleging issues with same-day registration voters. Ennenga lost her race against incumbent Democrat Kathleen Cates, who she is suing.

"The numbers just don't match," Ennenga said. "From the confusion created by same-day registration to changes in the provisional ballot numbers after the canvass, there are too many unanswered questions. I am filing this complaint to demand transparency and a hand recount of the ballots."

In the complaint Ennenga filed, she alleges that the irregularities occurred in the counties of Sandoval and Bernalillo.

“In New Mexico House District 44, the sum of the precinct line items does not equal the precinct line items of total votes cast,” Ennenga wrote in the complaint, later adding, “There is a discrepancy between total voters casting their votes and the total number of votes cast.”

At a Sandoval County Board of Elections meeting last month, the county deputy clerk admitted to errors that occurred on Election Day. These included a failure to upload results from a precinct because a poll worker mishandled a tabulator memory card, which corrupted the data. There were also 32 provisional ballots that were rejected because of the absentee board’s improper handling of them, and two early voting tabulators deployed without proper seals. All but one of the county commissioners voted to approve the election despite the errors.

Ennenga received 8,158 votes in her race, while her opponent received 9,166 votes. Her complaint alleges that there is a “discrepancy of 463 votes in Sandoval County.”

North Carolina

The Republican candidate in the North Carolina Supreme Court race requested on Wednesday that the high court toss out 60,000 ballots from the court election last month.

North Carolina Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin made the request of the state Supreme Court after he lost a challenge a week earlier to reject those ballots before the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NSCBE). Griffin is behind his Democratic opponent, current state Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs, by 734 votes.

The lawsuit asks the high court to block the Democrat-led state elections board from certifying the current election results and counting the 60,000 ballots. The state Supreme Court has a 5-2 Republican majority.

“In the 2024 general election, the Board’s errors changed the outcome of the election for the open seat on this Court,” Griffin’s lawsuit reads. “When those errors were raised again in valid election protests, the Board then claimed that it was too late to fix its law-breaking.”

Griffin and state Republicans argue that the 60,000 ballots should be rejected because ineligible voters fraudulently cast them. However, the state elections board rejected the argument. Griffin would lead the race if the ballots are thrown out.

More than 5.5 million ballots were cast in the state Supreme Court race, and a full machine recount and a partial hand recount of the election showed Griffin trailing behind Riggs by 734 votes.

Griffin’s legal team filed hundreds of challenges across all of North Carolina’s 100 counties over the 60,000 ballots. The allegations included voters who allegedly didn’t have a Social Security number or a driver’s license number in their voter registration records and overseas voters who failed to provide photo identification with their ballots and haven’t lived in North Carolina.

The NSCBE rejected those challenges last week and has "certified the vote totals," according to a state elections board spokesperson, but cannot finalize certification by issuing a certificate of election "until all protests and appeals are adjudicated."

The North Carolina Democratic Party on Thursday criticized Griffin’s lawsuit.

“In a truly outlandish move, Jefferson Griffin has now taken his attack on voters one step further. He is hiding behind Chief Justice Paul Newby and he is now trying to achieve what’s been aiming for all along: getting the Republican-controlled state Supreme Court to toss out legitimate ballots and hand this seat to him,” the political party posted on X.

“There have been multiple recounts that all confirmed that Justice Riggs won this seat by 734 votes. His conduct continues to demonstrate that he is not fit to serve on the Court. Concede now.”

The state Democratic Party earlier this month filed a lawsuit in federal court to preemptively ensure that all ballots in the state Supreme Court race are counted.

The lawsuit argues that federal law does not permit states to reject ballots over voters’ registration papers missing Social Security numbers or driver’s license numbers. It also notes that Republicans filed a lawsuit ahead of the election to have 225,000 voters removed from the voter rolls for having that information missing from voter registration records, but that it was dismissed by a federal court.

Griffin’s state lawsuit argues that his election challenge raises “questions that our nation’s system of federalism reserves for state courts, not federal courts.”

Tennessee

School board candidates Ryan Berkley, Zaire Gary and Sam Pettyjohn, and city commission candidate Jay Emberton, who all lost their races, are suing Washington County, Tenn., for a redo election in Johnson City. The four plaintiffs filed the lawsuit after the election results were certified late last month, in accordance with state law. They allege that there were 60 improper votes that were counted in the city’s election.

The Johnson City commission race was between nine candidates for three seats, and the last seat was decided by 38 votes for incumbent City Commissioner Joe Wise over fellow incumbent Aaron Murphy.

Carter County election officials gave 44 Johnson City ballots to voters who didn’t live there. Part of the county is within the city limits but the voters who received the incorrect ballots were not.

An election contest must be in the county where the elected commission or board holds its meetings, even if the alleged illegalities occurred elsewhere, which is why the lawsuit was filed in Washington County rather than Carter.

On Thursday, the plaintiffs alleged that some voters were given county ballots, despite living in Johnson City; other people were allowed to vote despite not being registered voters; and some voters were allowed to vote at the wrong precinct.

The Washington County Election Commission, which the plaintiffs are suing, has sought a dismissal of the case, arguing that the Carter County Election Commission should be sued instead since most of the alleged illegal votes were in that county. The county commission also claims that the school board candidates do not have standing in the lawsuit since the alleged illegal votes only would have affected the city commission race.

The trial for the case is currently set for Jan. 13, but the candidates are seeking a three-day delay to obtain representation.

“I’m not exactly sure on the verbiage in the lawsuit that mentions the Johnson City Commission, but every member of the city election was affected by votes that were counted irregularly,” Gary, one of the school board candidates, said last month. “And so this lawsuit benefits every single candidate, not just the commission.”

Gary explained that the irregularities were the reason for the lawsuit.

“Because of these, honestly, our only choice as a community, not just one candidate, not just for myself, our only choice is to file a lawsuit with the proper authorities to get this election to be redone,” he added. “That’s the proper process to do this. And so it’s not that we wanted to file a lawsuit. If the election commission could just redo it, I believe that they would.”