The GOP’s judicial chaos

by | Jun 25, 2018 | 2018 elections, Editor's Blog, NC Politics

Republicans are in such a rush to rig the electoral process in North Carolina that the people carrying out the laws can’t even keep up. The GOP has made changes to the voting process almost every year since they took power–gerrymandering local government, making nonpartisan races partisan, passing various voter suppression measures, etc. Their latest target has been the judicial system.

In a 2017 bill, they made nonpartisan judicial races partisan. This year, they canceled primaries for judicial races, requiring all judges to run in a winner-takes-all general election in November. That means we could have multiple Democratic or Republican candidates running against each other this year.

The filing for judicial contests opened last week. The monkey business started soon afterwards. A Republican front group calling itself The Alliance for Fairness in Justice is recruiting Democrats to run for Court of Appeals and Supreme Court. The Democratic Party has already endorsed candidates in those races and have one for each seat. The GOP wants to split up that vote.

Then, on Friday, the state board of elections started calling judicial candidates who filed in multimember districts and asking them which seat they were seeking. That took candidate by surprise. They filed believing they were running in vote-for-two districts. In other words, voters could cast ballots for two judges in the district. Now, it turns out that the 2017 law specified that each seat within a multimember district must be specified. In other words, a judicial district might have more than one judge but each seat would be contested individually, like Supreme Court and Court of Appeals seats. Incumbents would clearly run for the seat they’re holding but challengers, who filed believing they would be in a vote-for two-district, must now choose which seat they’re seeking and which incumbent they’re challenging. The GOP clearly confused election officials.

Finally, the GOP passed bills that have yet to be signed or vetoed in the middle of the filing period. With any organization, they would have passed those bills earlier in the session or made them take effect in 2020 instead of 2018. Instead, they’re leaving the judiciary and the electorate in limbo.

Republicans have made a mockery of our electoral process. They continually change the system to the point that voters, elections officials and candidates are perpetually confused. They’ve left us in continual state of uncertainty. They’ve shown very little respect for the people of this state, putting their desire to rig the electorate and government ahead of the good of their constituents.

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