A North Carolina Superior Court judge has ruled that the re-vote for North Carolina Agricultural Commissioner is unnecessary (HT: Timothy Goddard) and has called off a second state-wide election for the post.
The ruling came after winning candidate Republican Steve Troxler demonstrated with affidavits from 1,000 voters from Carteret County, whose votes were among 4,438 that had been lost in a voting machine, that he had a definitive margin of victory (which Political Calculations showed here back on December 30, 2004!)
While the incumbent, Democrat Britt Cobb may still appeal the ruling, the clarity of the statutes governing elections in North Carolina don't offer much hope for the state Democratic Party's attempt to perform an end-run around the law. Superior Court Judge James Spencer noted in his ruling that the Democrat-weighted election board had appeared to place partisan politics ahead of the proper protocol for conducting the election:
"(The) court does observe that there comes a time when the passion of partisan politics must give way to the integrity of the electoral process. The people of North Carolina deserve and have a right to expect it and the integrity of our system of government demands it. That time, if not long past, is now."
If only they could place electoral process integrity ahead of nakedly partisan political interests in Washington, where extraordinary irregularities in the 2004 state governor's election do justify conducting a special election to determine the legitimate outcome of the race.