And how do those fit into this? So maybe you can just orient people who are coming at this, like where things stand in court.

Yeah, it's complicated and it's been a wild five months.

So for the better part of December and January, we had dual track litigation, state court litigation.

My opponent wanted state courts to decide this issue.

And the state board and me and voters that you represent, we've been in federal court arguing that federal courts need to decide these issues because federal law that is designed to help voters register and vote, federal law that is designed to help military voters vote because it is hard to serve in the military or be in a military family and cast a ballot.

These laws will be violated and our federal equal protection and substantive due process guarantees would be violated by what my opponent seeks.

What happened in February was the federal court said essentially out of a respect for the state court said, you know, we're going to let the state court proceedings play out.

But has it had an impact, you think, on any of the Republicans in state who may be like thinking, how the hell did we wind up on the other side of Ben Ginsberg, of all people, in a post-election case?

(laughs)

My, my opponent is trying to disenfranchise my own parents. Uh, my dad is a 30-year Navy veteran, retired now, but they moved to North Carolina to be near their kids, their grandkids, their granddogs. And my Dad just wants to do puzzles, and read, and putter around in his backyard, and he's scared that his vote won't count. And it's all about whether, um, the voter file, the electronic database, is missing some data. My dad and my mom presented their military ID when they went to register and went to vote. They're, they're retirees. They have retired military IDs. They don't have driver's license numbers on them, 'cause they're not driver's licenses. Military IDs don't have Social Security numbers on them. Um, this is attacking folks who did nothing wrong and trying to disenfranchise them. That's the biggest bucket. The next bucket are people who vote, um, using a law called the Uniform, um, and Overseas Citizens Voting Act. So, these are deployed military members, so people who are... live in North Carolina, have always lived in North Carolina, but because of their military service are maybe serving in Texas, or Florida, or overseas, in... stationed in Italy, at war, on a submarine. These people do not have to, from a submarine, produce a photo ID to vote, because there's not a mechanism for it. It doesn't happen anywhere. Um, military voters go through extra hurdles to request their ballots, and my opponent is seeking, um, to have the ballots of more than 5,500 North Carolina military members and their families tossed out. But I'll tell you what's even more troubling about that, is he's not seeking to have all 32,000 military votes k- thrown out, just the ones from the four, four of the most Democratic counties out of 100 counties.

Well, I'm curious what the reaction has been like in the state. Um, like, ha- has the Republican Party there kind of rallied around this at all? Um, wha- what, what are you hearing from folks on th- uh, actually in the state?

Impacted voters are outraged. The Republican Party, um, puts out tweets that say this is about election integrity, um, with no follow-up of, "Well, if you think our military votes sh- um, shou- shouldn't be not counted, why are you not trying to toss them in every 100 coun- every one of our 100 counties?" And obviously, they shouldn't be tossed in any county, but w- you know, there's a, a really outrageous level of hypocrisy in this. Um, there are Republicans speaking out, though. Um, uh, amongst the list of people challenged are Republican, um, county commission members, local elected officials, um, uh, Republican leaders. This week, uh, over 225 former judges and, um, leading governmental officials and lawyers sent a letter to my opponent telling him to stop, including, um, the general counsel, counsel for former, um, uh, Republican Governor Pat McCrory, and, um, a former counsel for the North Carolina, um, GOP. So, I know that there are people who understand the threat that this poses to the peaceful transition of power, the recognition of the results of an election, um, recognizing and acknowledging the decision of voters, and it is, there is growing bipartisan agreement, b- um, on this. But it is, you know, it's been f- nearly, as you mentioned, nearly five months. Um, it's, it's just, it's been too long already, and unfortunately, I don't know that it's gonna end soon. So my job is to make sure that when people start to feel discouraged, feel, um, powerless in the face of what's happening nationally and internationally, I want people to know how hard North Carolinians of all political stripes are fighting for our democracy and for an independent judiciary. This is the win that I think we need nationally, and we are the fighters that I think folks need to see. We need to see that there is no compromise on the fundamental right to vote, there is no compromise on we acknowledge and accept election results, um, and this is a fight that does, does not, we shouldn't have to have it, but it doesn't intimidate me one bit, and I will not give an inch on the fundamental rights of the people that I serve.

They issued a stay, which for, again, people who are not lawyers, that means they essentially blocked that the certification or the swearing in, what did the Supreme Court do and why did they, to the extent you can say, why did they do what they, what was the ask of them? How did we wind up here?

So a few weeks ago, and I'll report, I'll share this just, it's the facts of what happened.

A few weeks ago, my opponent filed an original action in the North Carolina Supreme Court.

So not an appeal, an original action in the North Carolina Supreme Court asking them to stay my certification.

So staying my certification means pausing the final steps of the electoral process, the normal electoral process.

So it means I don't get my certificate of election.

I can't take my oath.

I don't want to ask you how does it feel to now be on the other side of it as the candidate, But, you know, what do you make of this from like a trajectory as you see this through the through line of your career and the injustices and the challenges that voters have had? How do you see this?