Count Every Hero filed a brief with the Secure Families Initiative in Griffin v. North Carolina State Board of Elections to uphold the rights of military and overseas voters.

Raleigh, NC — Count Every Hero partnered with the Secure Families Initiative to urge the North Carolina State Board of Elections to uphold the eligibility of overseas voters and reject efforts to disqualify military and expatriate ballots.

The two groups submitted their request in response to coordinated protests seeking to disqualify military and overseas voters in the 2024 general election. These challenges targeted individuals who lawfully relied on the longstanding North Carolina Uniform Military Overseas Voters Act (UMOVA) to cast their ballots – and now risk disenfranchisement based on a challenge to this longstanding law and a redefinition of well-settled eligibility requirements.

“The Protesters’ effort to redefine well-settled eligibility requirements not only unfairly targets overseas voters who reasonably relied on the rules as they were written for this election; it also represents a fundamentally anti-democratic attempt to choose their voters after the fact, in contravention of ‘the core principle of republican government… that the voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.”

-Count Every Hero and the Secure Families Initiative

The brief argued that “targeting a discrete number of ballots…is in fact a stalking horse for a wide-ranging, highly politicized effort to exclude overseas voters from North Carolina elections, and indeed from state and federal elections across the country.” The Protesters sought to present themselves as “victims in need of protection from allegedly unconstitutional acts” while in reality harming the voters they sought to disenfranchise. Count Every Hero and the Secure Families Initiative argued that this effort is “fundamentally unfair and represents a subversion of foundational democratic principles” and undermines UMOVA and the the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), which are designed to ensure that military and overseas voters can participate in elections without facing undue burdens.

Count Every Hero’s involvement in this case underscores its commitment to protecting the integrity of civil-military relations and ensuring that all eligible voters — especially those serving in the military or residing overseas — can exercise their right to vote without unnecessary obstacles. This case highlights the importance of safeguarding the democratic process by upholding the rights of all citizens, regardless of their location or status.

Read the full brief here.