Doug Bock Clark
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Doug Bock Clark is a reporter in ProPublica’s South unit. He investigates threats to democracy and abuses of power throughout the region.

Republican Jefferson Griffin narrowly lost his race for a seat on the state Supreme Court. Now he’s asking that 60,000 ballots be thrown out based on a theory that an election denier said amounted to “voter suppression.”


On Monday, the GOP-controlled State Election Board is poised to adopt the rule, which would potentially allow county officials, including one who secretly backed the rule, to throw the election results of the swing state into chaos this fall.

The decisions came despite the Judicial Standards Commission’s recommendations to publicly reprimand the judges, and these are likely the only times in more than a decade in which the court didn’t follow the commission’s guidance.


What happened to the officials stands in sharp contrast to elsewhere in the U.S., where those who voted against certification faced few consequences.

A ProPublica review of local officials who refused to certify 2022 election results found that most did not face formal consequences. Experts explain what that means for the future of American elections.

Even in a county where Trump won more than 70% of the 2020 vote, local election deniers have mounted a campaign to access voting machines and slash the elections director's pay.