3/ The timing was inadvertantly prescient: we submitted our final report the same day #HurricaneHelene was pummelling western #NorthCarolina. The lessons we learned about the role of adaptable streets in building local resilience have never been more important to transportation planning.

#VotingRights experts have described the issues raised by Judge Griffin as moot because even if the voters’ registration forms were missing driver’s license numbers, state law still requires them to show ID when they vote.

Questions about those *omissions* had spread in conservative circles for more than a year, & were teed up for use by #Republican political strategists well before Judge Griffin’s loss in November.

In his protest, Judge Griffin sought to dismiss the ballots of ~65k people & argued that a majority of them were ineligible to vote because they did not supply certain required personal data — such as a driver’s license number — when they registered. But the omissions, he admitted, were because of administrative errors, not voter errors.

Justice Riggs was declared the winner of the NC State Supreme Court race by 734 votes, an unusually small margin. Judge Griffin sought to verify that margin by requesting recounts. After the State Board of Elections reaffirmed Justice Riggs’s victory twice, Judge Griffin filed a protest w/the board, which has a Democratic majority.

As the case continues through the court system, Judge Griffin & the #NorthCarolina #Republican Party have drawn criticism from #democracy watchdog groups, liberals & even some #conservatives who worry about a dangerous precedent being set for future elections.

On Tues, a panel of the US Court of Appeals for the #FourthCircuit temporarily blocked the ballot verification process that had been ordered by the #NorthCarolina State #SupremeCourt. Many of the ballots in
question come from #Democratic-leaning counties, so their removal could lead to the election being overturned.

The #Republican challenger, Judge Jefferson Griffin, who currently sits on the #NorthCarolina Court of Appeals, has instead embarked on an extraordinary monthslong effort to toss out scores of ballots.…

Griffin’s challenge has ping-ponged through federal & state courts. The Democratic incumbent, Justice Allison Riggs, appealed a recent State #SupremeCourt decision that could lead to thousands of #military & overseas ballots being tossed.

When she was 15, April Barber Scales was convinced by the man, twice her age, who had impregnated her, to set her grandparents’ house on fire. Her grandparents died, and Barber Scales received two consecutive life sentences without parole. In 2022, she had been in prison for 31 years when under a clemency program for juvenile lifers established by then North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, she was released. Since then, she has completed an associate’s degree and is now finishing a bachelor’s in criminal justice. She works, volunteers, studies, and thrives. @bolts reports on other successes from the program, and how those who remain in jail hope it continues under the governorship of Josh Stein.

https://boltsmag.org/north-carolina-juvenile-life-sentences/

#NorthCarolina #USPrisonSystem #Crime #USNews #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

11/15