Welcome. This is a weekly feature of North Carolina Blue. The platform gives readers interested in North Carolina politics a place to share their knowledge, insight and inspiration as we take back our state from some of the most extreme Republicans in the nation. Please stop by each week. You can also join the discussion in four other weekly State Open Threads. If you are interested in starting your own state blog, weekly to occasionally, I will list your work below.
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I’m opening this week’s story collection with two reports on the ongoing attempted theft of 60,000 votes by state appeals court Judge Jefferson Griffin. Reactions to Trump freezes, Duke Energy’s backtracking on limiting emissions, Durham’s city-wide public park closures (lead), and nature-based climate solutions stories follow. Hope you enjoy; happy Sunday.
"I'm in disbelief that this is actually happening": GOP election denial hits North Carolina voters
Tatyana Tandanpolie, Salon
About three weeks after last November's election, Spring Dawson-McClure received an unassuming postcard from the North Carolina GOP informing her that her ballot "may be affected" by the party's litigation. The notice, blank on one side, featured a QR code that directed her to the state Republican Party's website, where she found her name on a list of voters declared ineligible because their voter registration applications did not have required identification information.
She was annoyed, the 48-year-old Hillsborough resident told Salon, first by having to take time to verify with the Orange County board of elections that her voter registration was, in fact, complete and then with the idea her vote had been challenged at all. The North Carolina native said she has voted in 19 of the state's elections since 2012 and never had any problems before this election cycle.
The challenge came after Appellate Judge Jefferson Griffin, a Republican, sought to challenge his electoral defeat, twice confirmed with recounts, to incumbent Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs in the state's Supreme Court race. Griffin trails Riggs, a Democrat, by just 734 votes out of some 5.5 million cast. He sued the North Carolina Board of Elections in the state Supreme Court in December after it rejected his election protests, asking the court to force the board to toss out tens of thousands of ballots he alleges are invalid under state law. <Read more>
'It can't be real': North Carolina voters furious at efforts to scrap 60K ballots
Doug Bock Clark, ProPublica
A Republican judge has spent more than two months trying to overturn his narrow defeat for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat by arguing that around 60,000 ballots should be tossed out. But many residents have only recently learned that their votes are in danger of not being counted and say they have done nothing wrong.
ProPublica has heard from dozens of voters who expressed astonishment and anger at state appeals court Judge Jefferson Griffin’s ongoing attempts to cancel their ballots. The claim at the heart of Griffin’s challenge: No ballot should be counted for a voter whose registration is missing a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.
The state election board and a Donald Trump-appointed federal judge have dismissed Griffin’s argument that the missing information should invalidate votes. What’s more, state election officials have made clear that there are many legitimate reasons for driver’s license or Social Security information to be missing. And it’s not as if voters can cast ballots without confirming who they are. North Carolina law requires that people verify their identity at the polls — in most cases by showing a driver’s license. <Read more>
North Carolina officials, education and care providers condemn Trump funding freeze
North Carolina officials and advocates denounced President Donald Trump’s attempt to freeze trillions of dollars in federal aid in a news conference Friday, warning of widespread harm to families, older adults, and children, as well as the economy at-large.
“With a stroke of a pen, President Trump’s administration froze federal funding for a range of programs that North Carolinians rely on every single day,” said Rep. Deborah Ross (D-NC2). “He intentionally tried to hurt our most vulnerable friends and neighbors.”
A directive from the Office of Management and Budget Monday sparked widespread panic and confusion as it ordered a freeze on all federal grants and loans with just a day’s notice — potentially implicating more than $30 billion to North Carolina. State healthcare officials around the country raised alarms as they were locked out of Medicaid reimbursement portals early Tuesday, though access was eventually restored.
Ross condemned the measure as “unconstitutional,” speaking Friday outside the State Capitol building, and said no president has the authority to unilaterally rescind funding passed by Congress. “It is wrong to withhold North Carolina tax dollars from the people of North Carolina,” she said. <Read more>
Duke Energy promised to limit emissions at four new gas plants. It’s already back-tracking
NC’s biggest utility is among 10 companies that have written to Trump’s new EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, asking for relief from a key Biden emissions rule, as well as coal ash disposal requirements.
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.
Environmental advocates in North Carolina are angry after 10 utilities and power companies, including Duke Energy, sent a letter Jan. 15 to Lee Zeldin, confirmed on Wednesday as EPA administrator, asking him to weaken environmental regulations over coal ash and natural gas.
These regulations help protect air and water from toxic chemicals as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change.
The Senate confirmed Zeldin on a largely party line, 56-42 vote, with three Democrats voting in favor. Zeldin has in recent years advocated unleashing fossil fuel production.
Canary Media first reported the existence of the letter.
The power companies alleged, without citing evidence, that stronger EPA rules for the fossil fuel industry, enacted under previous administrator Michael Regan, “individually and collectively threaten the reliability of the power grid, jeopardize national security, are a drag on economic growth, increase inflation and hinder the expansion of electric power generation to support the critical development and deployment of artificial intelligence and related technologies.”
A Duke Energy spokesman declined to comment, saying the letter summarizes the utility’s stance. <Read more>
No date yet for when Durham parks contaminated with lead could reopen
DURHAM, N.C. (WNCN) — The warning signs and orange fencing keeping people out of sections of five Durham parks with lead and contaminants in the soil are not going anywhere. The parks are expected to be closed through at least the end of the year.
For more than a year, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has been studying the parks after Duke University researchers found lead and contaminants in the soil at East Durham, East End, Lyon, Northgate, and Walltown parks.
Monday night, NCDEQ and the Durham Parks and Recreation Department shared the results of recent testing done at the five parks and what the process for moving forward entails.
People at the meeting held at Walltown Recreation Center urged the city to fix this as soon as possible.
“It is fundamental that we do not have our community and our kids being poisoned by the city’s own property,” said a member of the public who spoke during the meeting.
Durham’s Parks and Recreation Director Wade Walcutt said NCDEQ still has more testing to do. He hopes by the end of the year there will be enough information to be able to lay out all the possible solutions for the parks.
Why nature-based climate solutions are growing in popularity in the Wilmington area. <Read more>
Why nature-based climate solutions are growing in popularity in the Wilmington area
With climate change creating more and more environmental challenges and unpredictable weather events, some are looking for answers outside the traditional box.
Keys:
- The state's average temperature reached the second-warmest on record, with all twelve months exceeding historical averages.
- Beach communities face challenges with increasingly expensive and difficult-to-schedule nourishment projects as sea levels rise and storms intensify.
- There is a growing movement to embrace nature-based solutions, such as living shorelines and wetland restoration, to adapt to the changing climate and mitigate its impacts.
One for the record books.
That's how the N.C. State Climate Office summed up the state's weather in 2024 that walloped both sides of the state with extreme events ranging from the costliest and deadliest tropical storm in Tar Heel State history (Helene) to searing droughts that bookended the year.
Mix in soaring temperatures, with North Carolina's statewide average temperature of 61.5 ranking as the second-warmest year on record -- just behind the warmest year in 2019, and five of the state’s top six warmest years have happened since 2016. Each year in the past decade also ranks among the top 22 warmest on record dating back to 1895.
Notably, the state climate office noted, all twelve months in 2024 were warmer than the historical average statewide. That’s only the third time that's happened.
The weather whiplash has put residents and businesses on notice, with many fearing 2024's weather isn't a one-off event but a sign of things to come as climate change continues to change and modify traditional weather patterns and events. <Read more>
Thanks for visiting, wishing all a good week.