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The Republican-controlled North Carolina Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily blocked the certification of a Democratic incumbent’s narrow victory, throwing the election of one lawmaker into chaos. The move will give the court time to consider a challenge by his Republican opponent, state Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin, who has previously tried unsuccessfully to block Judge Alison Riggs’ re-election. I have cited legal theories that have been debunked.
Mr. Griffin has asked that his claim be decided by the Supreme Court, which he hopes to be a part of and which is led by his mentor. On Monday, a federal judge appointed by former President Donald Trump sent Griffin’s challenge back to the state Supreme Court. The state Board of Elections is now asking a federal appeals court to send the case back to federal court.
Mr. Riggs won re-election by a margin of 734 votes, a narrow margin confirmed by two recounts. She will remain in court while the election results are contested, but has recused herself from the matter.
Griffin is asking the Supreme Court to throw out about 60,000 ballots, an unprecedented request based on a theory rejected by both the state election board and a federal judge.
Griffin did not respond to requests for comment. He previously declined to answer questions from ProPublica, saying commenting on pending litigation violates the state’s judicial code of conduct.
“This is extremely dangerous for democracy in North Carolina,” said Ann Webb, policy director at voting advocacy group Common Cause North Carolina. If the state Supreme Court sided with Griffin and overturned Riggs’ victory, it would open the door for future candidates to “challenge the rules in place for elections and have their votes retroactively thrown out.” ” An endless process of contesting election rules and results after the fact could bring our entire system to a standstill. ”
“This case is even more exceptional because, to date, Judge Griffin has never presented any evidence of voter fraud or illegal voting,” Webb said. He’s just trying to raise vague concerns about insufficient voter identification checks and use that to overturn the election. ”
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Griffin argues that voters who are missing driver’s license or social security information from North Carolina’s election database should receive a discount on their ballots. The theory was originated and defended by far-right activists aligned with conservative organizations who were secretly preparing to challenge the election results if Trump lost the 2024 election, ProPublica reported. The organization, Election Integrity Network, is led by lawyers who helped Mr. Trump try to overturn the 2020 election.
State election officials and federal judges have repeatedly rejected that theory, acknowledging there are many valid reasons why that information is missing, including that state filings were updated about a year ago. This includes cases where the voter was registered before the details were requested. “The potential for voter fraud resulting from a voter not providing a driver’s license or Social Security number to register to vote is virtually non-existent,” state elections board attorneys said in a legal filing. .
Neither Mr. Griffin nor the right-wing activists have proven that any of the 60,000 votes were fraudulent.
In a July 2024 call to the North Carolina chapter of the Election Integrity Network, a right-wing activist argued that candidates losing in close races could use the theory to contest results they disagree with, the agency said. This is revealed by the recordings obtained. ProPublica. When the chapter’s leader expressed concern about the legality of the theory, saying it was “voter suppression” and would be “100%” certain to fail in court, another activist said, “It’s not us. will be clarified,” he said. The activist’s data analysis and arguments later became the basis for the Republican National Committee’s efforts to disqualify hundreds of thousands of voters before the election, as well as Griffin’s attempts to overturn the election, according to Pro. Publica discovered.
ProPublica reported in December that Griffin described Chief Justice Paul Newby as a “good friend and mentor,” writing when Griffin announced his candidacy for the Supreme Court. He helped elect Chief Justice Paul Newby and three other members of the current Republican majority. ”
North Carolina Supreme Court nominee’s effort to overturn defeat is based on a theory that election deniers consider extreme
Newby and the other judges did not respond to a detailed list of questions about the December article.
Not all Republican justices agreed to block Riggs from certifying victory. “Allowing post-election lawsuits seeking to rewrite state election rules and thereby stripping away the right to vote in elections from people who have already legally voted under existing rules,” Republican Judge Richard Dietz wrote. To strip it would be to invite incredible mischief.” In his dissent, he stressed that Griffin’s challenge to the 60,000 votes was “almost certainly futile.” Democratic Judge Anita Earls joined him, breaking the line of four other Republicans.
Dietz said that allowing Griffin’s lawsuit to proceed would “raise doubts about the finality of the post-election vote count, encourage new legal challenges that could significantly delay certification of the results, and raise already alarming concerns.” “This will only accelerate the decline in public trust in elections.”
