The Ridiculous Saga of Naked Corruption Continues

by Rob Yates
LPNC Communications Director

Over the past few months, three new parties - the Constitution Party, the Justice For All (JFA) party, and the We The People (WTP) party - collected the required number of signatures to gain recognition and ballot access in North Carolina. The North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) approved the Constitution Party - ostensibly a right-leaning party, and also the WTP party - which is the party for RFK Jr in North Carolina, while rejecting the JFA party - the party under which Cornell West is running for president.

The NCSBE comprises three Democrats and two Republicans. Under the current rules, the Governor's party gets to pick three of the members. Cooper is, of course, a Democrat. No unaffiliated members are on the NCSBE, despite unaffiliated voters making up the largest block in NC, nor are there any Libertarians or Greens on the NCSBE, the other two parties recognized in NC at the beginning of this year. Our government is loathe to actually resemble the people of North Carolina. 

In fact, just last year, Cooper used the courts to fight an attempt by Republicans to increase the number of members to eight, with four members from each major party. He then fought a lawsuit brought by five unaffiliated voters seeking representation on the board. The "party of democracy" seems to have serious concerns with a government that represents anything but its interests. 

Using the Elections Board and the courts to hoard power is a go-to in the playbook for the North Carolina Democrats. In 2022, the NCSBE tried to keep the Green Party and Senate candidate Matthew Hoh off the ballot, despite their petition having the required number of approved and confirmed signatures. The Green Party candidate was viewed as potentially taking votes from the Democrats, and several people reported receiving harassing phone calls asking them to remove their signatures from the petition.

Publicly, the NCSBE claimed that they were concerned about fraudulent signatures. The courts disagreed, and Matthew Hoh gained ballot access while the NC Dems received a strong rebuke for their meritless legal wrangling. The North Carolina Democrats were even further embarrassed this year, when courts awarded the Green Party damages for the Dems' "frivolous" efforts. 

History repeats itself, and the NCSBE this year delayed the votes on recognizing parties that might hurt Democrat candidates, this time the JFA and WTP parties. While reports once again surfaced of harassing phone calls targeting people who signed the petition, the board cited fears of fraudulent signatures and alleged that the two parties were circumventing rules surrounding independent candidates on the ballot (the signature threshold is nearly six times higher for an independent candidate than for a new party to be recognized) as the reasons for delaying the vote and eventually denying the JFA party. 

Both this year and in 2022, Democrat super lawyer Marc Elias, known for filing suits all around the country to help Democrats hoard power so aggressively that he was fired by the Biden campaign, and the Elias Law Group were the face and the finance driving the push to prevent competition. This year, Clear Choice Action superPAC brought some out-of-state money to the fight as well. Together, they sent at least five letters to the NCSBE encouraging them to reject the JFA and WTP applications under nearly the exact same imaginary concerns as two years ago. 

After delaying the vote, the NCSBE eventually would approve the Constitution Party and the WTP party, while rejecting the petition from the JFA party. But this saga is far from over.

After the NCSBE rejected their petition, the JFA party filed a federal lawsuit against the board alleging violation of their constitutional rights and seeking ballot access. In a twist straight out of 2022, however, the North Carolina Democrat Party has also filed a lawsuit against the board and against the WTP party, seeking to have RFK removed from the ballot. The actions of the board and the NC Dems have drawn scrutiny and review from the NC General Assembly and from federal lawmakers. The board did not take action on the lawsuits in its most recent meeting.

The first hearing on the JFA's lawsuit was Tuesday. The Libertarian Party of North Carolina (LPNC) has been engaged in this from the beginning, including a letter from our State Chair, Ryan Brown, signed by 22 leaders from six other parties, calling on the NCSBE to recognize all three parties in the name of fairness and representative government. When they rejected the other two parties, we called for the resignation of the three Democrats on the board. That letter and our related press releases are linked below. We will keep you updated as we have more information or further involvement. 

• LPNC Expresses Strong Disagreement with the NCSBE Decision - Press Release on the June 26 Meeting
• Application to Recognize Three New Parties in North Carolina - Letter from LPNC State Chair Ryan Brown, signed by more than twenty leaders from six different NC parties
  
• LPNC Expresses Strong Disagreement with the NCSBE Decision, Redux, Calls for Resignations - Press Release on the July 9 Meeting
  

LPNC State Chair Ryan Brown discusses the NCSBE decision on the Pete Kaliner show