Powerful Democratic law firm intervened in NC Green Party certification

Days before the North Carolina Green Party was denied a spot on the state’s ballots, a powerful Democratic-aligned law firm submitted several complaints to the State Board of Elections asking that hundreds of signatures from the party’s petition campaign be thrown out.

On Thursday, the State Board of Elections voted 3-2 to deny the Green Party’s certification — citing concerns of fraud. The vote was taken along party lines, with all the Democrats voting against certification.

Pat Gannon, a spokesperson for the state board said the individuals being investigated “are suspected of being responsible for well over 2,000 signatures.”

Chris Cooper, a political scientist at Western Carolina University, said many signatures are expected to be thrown out in any petitioning campaign, though this case is unique in the level of interest and intervention it caused.

“I think what makes this case different is that it does appear that the Democratic Party had a vested interest in the outcome and did what they could to influence it,” Cooper said in a phone interview with the News & Observer.

The Elias Group, a Washington-based firm with ties to major Democratic politicians, submitted at least three letters to the state board and four complaints to county boards which were made public as part of the meeting’s materials. All of these materials were submitted by Michael Vincent Abucewicz, who has worked for North Carolina Democrats, along with his lawyer, Jacquelyn Lopez, a partner at The Elias Group.

The complaints from Abucewicz to the county boards cite missing signatures, signatures written in the same handwriting multiple times, signatures from voters not registered in the county where it was supposed to be signed and signatures on petition sheets that did not accurately include the name of the proposed Green Party chair.

“The Board should refrain from determining the sufficiency of the Green Party’s submission until it is able to assure itself and the public that the Green Party’s petitions contain valid signatures that were obtained in compliance with the law,” Abucewicz wrote in a June 28 letter to the State Board of Elections.

The complaints allege that 246 voter signatures that were validated by county boards of election should have been disqualified. The firm also sent the state board affidavits and declarations of 148 voters asking for their signatures to be removed — calling into question a total of 394 signatures.

Representatives of The Elias Group did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

“What we’re dealing with here is, in my opinion, a pretty blatant effort to keep us off the ballot just to protect the two-party system,” said Matthew Hoh, the N.C. Green Party’s presumptive candidate for U.S. Senate.

Pat Gannon, spokesperson for the State Board of Elections, said the board’s investigation into the Green Party began long before The Elias Group’s involvement. Between April and June, several county boards reported irregularities to the state board, prompting it to open an official investigation on May 13 — before the complaints from the Elias Group were submitted.

Gannon also said the number of signatures questioned by the Elias Group is separate from the number the state board has identified as potential “organized fraudulent activity.”

“It does appear to be organized fraud perpetrated by multiple individuals,” Gannon said in an email statement to The News & Observer.

Stacy “Four” Eggers IV, a Republican member of the State Board of Elections, said he felt there wasn’t sufficient evidence at the time of the meeting to deny certification.

“We certainly had questions and speculation, but we did not have anything that would definitively say there were enough signatures in doubt from what came from the counties to not proceed with certification, from my point of view,” Eggers said in a phone interview with The N&O.

Eggers also said he wasn’t confident there was a mechanism in the law for petition signers to revoke their signatures.

Green Party leaders acknowledged that several contractors hired by the party intentionally doctored signatures — though they maintain that these contractors did so without the knowledge or permission of the party. They also say the number of signatures these contractors doctored represent a small portion of the total signatures the party collected and were likely not verified by county officials anyway.

The N.C. Green Party submitted over 22,000 signatures in its petition drive — of which nearly 16,000 were validated by the county boards of elections. The state requires new parties to obtain 13,865 signatures to become certified, giving the party a 2,000 signature lead. Even if all the signatures that the Elias Group objected to or had removed were disqualified, the Green Party would still lead by nearly 1,700 signatures, though Gannon said the state board is investigating more than 2,000 signatures.

Democratic forces target Green Party

Marc Elias, founder of the eponymous law firm, has been a longstanding figure in Democratic politics. He has served as the general counsel for both John Kerry and Hillary Clinton and was also involved in a lawsuit regarding ballot access for third-party presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

The Elias Group is also the counsel for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which began contacting people who signed the petitions last month urging them to remove their signatures, arguing that having the Green Party on the ballot would hurt Democrats’ election chances.

The DSCC told the N&O on June 27 that “Since the North Carolina Green Party hired a petition gathering firm with a documented record of committing fraud, we’re reaching out to voters to ensure they have not been deceived.”

However, the messages from the DSCC also heavily emphasize the electoral damage the Green Party could do to Democrats.

“If the Green Party is on the ballot it will give Republicans a huge advantage that will help them win in North Carolina in 2022 and 2024,” texts from the DSCC to signatories said.

Signers of the Green Party’s petitions also reported that people had come to their homes, sometimes more than once, to urge them to remove their signatures. In a video obtained by The N&O, a woman identifying herself as working for North Carolina Democrats comes to the home of one of the petition signers to ask him to remove his signature.

“We’re letting people know that it would be a disadvantage for Democrats and an advantage for Republicans,” the woman said.

When asked if they were involved in the door-to-door campaigns, the DSCC referred The N&O to its original June 27 statement.

“It’s disappointing that a party that claims to support voter participation and to want to protect voter rights would go to such lengths to harass and intimidate voters who signed these petitions,” Oliver Hall, the N.C. Green Party’s lawyer said.

Christopher Butz, an operations manager in Durham, was one of the signers who revoked his signature after being contacted by the DSCC. He told The N&O in a phone interview that he had not felt pressured or misled by either the Greens or the Democrats, and had simply changed his mind after considering what having the Green Party on the ballot might mean for Democrats’ election chances.

Butz said that while he supported the idea of third parties in theory, he did not want to contribute to any campaign that may put Democrats at risk of losing seats to Republicans in the midterms.

“I wish we had a situation where the electoral process wasn’t dominated by two parties,” Butz said. “But I’m not going to change that overnight, and I don’t believe letting a party such as the Green Party on the ballot is going to change it overnight either.”

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