Threats to democracy are real, U.S. Senator says, ‘Look at North Carolina’ | Opinion

A group of Democratic senators just held a forum in Washington focused on threats to democracy.

Unfortunately, North Carolina figured prominently.

State Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs spoke to the senators on Wednesday about her six-month legal battle to get her election certified after her Republican opponent sought to have more than 68,000 votes disqualified after the election. Riggs won by 734 votes out of more than 5.5 million cast.

North Carolina appellate judges saw validity in the complaint, but a federal judge rejected it as an illegal effort to change the rules of an election after the vote.

“My experience and the experience of North Carolinians in the past election cycle should be taken as the very serious threat to democracy that it was,” Riggs said in her opening statement.

Republican Jefferson Griffin challenged voters in heavily Democratic counties who appeared to have left their driver’s license numbers or the last four digits of their Social Security number off their voter registration, which he said was required by law. He also challenged the votes of military and overseas voters who did not include a photo ID with their absentee ballot. State election officials did not inform voters that those steps were necessary and it was disputed whether they were actually required.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) asked Riggs if she was concerned that the challenge to her election could be “a blueprint” for a new wave of post-election challenges. “I am,” Riggs said, noting that the issue did not reach a federal appeals court. “It is still likely, absent our collective willingness to recognize this threat and take the appropriate steps.”

The forum, “Protecting the Future of American Democracy: Fighting a Surge in Voter Suppression,” was led by U.S. senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). Several other Democratic senators attended, but no Republicans.

In his opening statement, Durbin said Riggs’ experience illustrated the growing threats to democracy in the U.S. “This just not a theory. Look at North Carolina where there was an aggressive, thankfully unsuccessful, attempt to discard valid ballots and overturn an election,” he said. “That is not democracy. That is sabotage.”

Riggs said her campaign against Griffin cost $5 million and she then had to raise another $2 million to fight the post-election challenge. She said her experience raised a fundamental question.

“Do voters – not politicians – decide elections?” Riggs said. “If the answer to that is ’no,’ then no voter will ever come out of a polling place feeling confident that their vote will count. Instead, it will depend on whether partisan politicians have enough money to throw at a race to litigate the outcome after the fact.”

The senators also heard from former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who opposes state gerrymandering efforts as chair of the National Democratic Committee on Redistricting, Justin Levitt, a Loyola Marymount University law professor who studies constitutional and election law, and Janessa Goldbeck, a U.S. Marine officer and CEO of Vet Voice Foundation, a nonprofit that encourages veterans and military families to participate in democracy.

Goldbeck, whose group intervened in support of Riggs, said many of the military members whose votes were challenged were overseas and unaware. “We used every tool in our toolbox to try to find these people,” she said.

Durbin said there should be “a sense of outrage” that a member of the military “who is sworn to risk his or her life for this country, who wears the uniform proudly, is being challenged in terms of the most fundamental right of a citizen of the United States, the right to vote.”

The forum was held at the same time that Republican state lawmakers in Texas, at the urging of President Trump, are preparing new district maps that could be gerrymandered to add five more Republican House members to their congressional delegation.. On display at the forum was a poster of Trump that included his recent quote: “Texas would be the biggest one. Just a very simple redrawing. We pick up five seats.”

Both Holder and Levitt pointed to a North Carolina case – Rucho v. Common Cause – that could have made partisan gerrymandering illegal, but in a 5-4 decision in 2019 the court ruled that excessive partisan gerrymandering is anti-democratic, but not an issue for the federal courts.

Levitt said the Rucho decision frustrated voters who want an end to gerrymandering. “I will tell you that voters of both parties don’t like it. They hate it,” he said. “Where they’ve had the opportunity, they’ve voted in staggering numbers against it.”

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-404-7583, or nbarnett@newsobserver.com

This story was originally published August 3, 2025 at 4:30 AM.