Republican state Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin is dropping his legal challenge against thousands of votes cast in his November 2024 election against Democrat Allison Riggs. Griffin’s concession to Riggs Wednesday arrived six months after the election.
A federal judge had issued a ruling Monday ordering the State Board of Elections to certify Riggs as the winner. She will serve a full eight-year term on North Carolina’s highest court.
Final vote counts showed Riggs leading Griffin by 734 votes out of more than 5.5 million ballots cast statewide last fall. But Griffin had challenged more than 65,000 ballots in a legal dispute that moved through both state and federal court.
US Chief District Judge Richard Myers issued a 68-page order Monday ending Griffin’s bid to disqualify disputed ballots. Myers had given Griffin one week to appeal the decision.
“While I do not fully agree with the District Court’s analysis, I respect the court’s holding — just as I have respected every judicial tribunal that has heard this case,” Griffin said in a statement from his campaign. “I will not appeal the court’s decision.”
“This effort has always been about upholding the rule of law and making sure that every legal vote in an election is counted,” Griffin wrote.
“I am thankful that our Supreme Court affirmed the holding from our Court of Appeals,
recognizing that the North Carolina State Board of Elections failed to follow our Constitution
and the laws enacted by our General Assembly,” Griffin added. “The courts have affirmed that Voter ID is required for all absentee ballots and that you must be a resident of North Carolina to vote in North Carolina elections. These holdings are very significant for securing our state’s elections.”
Myers’ order Monday rejected a state Supreme Court decision in April that placed at least 1,675 and as many as 5,700 ballots from the fall election in question. The state’s highest court endorsed a ballot “cure” process to deal with the disputed ballots.
Most of those ballots were tied to overseas voters who provided no photo identification. A smaller number involved “never residents” who had checked a box on a voter form indicating they had never lived in North Carolina or the United States.
“IT IS ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that the 1. Retroactive invalidation of absentee ballots cast by overseas military and civilian voters violates those voters’ substantive due process rights; 2. The cure process violates the equal protection rights of overseas military and civilian voters; and 3. The lack of any notice or opportunity for eligible voters to contest their mistaken designation as Never Residents violates procedural due process and represents an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote,” Myers wrote.
“IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that the State Board SHALL NOT take any action in furtherance of the North Carolina Court of Appeals and Supreme Court’s orders,” Myers added.
“The State Board SHALL certify the results of the election … based on the tally at the completion of the canvassing period on December 10, 2024,” Myers wrote, confirming Riggs’ lead.
“[T]he court wishes to make clear that this case is not about the prerogative of North Carolina courts to interpret North Carolina law. Without question, those courts ‘are the principal expositors of state law,’” Myers wrote. “This case is also not about North Carolina’s primacy to establish rules for future state elections; it may do so. Rather, this case concerns whether the federal Constitution permits a state to alter the rules of an election after the fact and apply those changes retroactively to only a select group of voters, and in so doing treat
those voters differently than other similarly situated individuals.”
“This case is also about whether a state may redefine its class of eligible voters but offer no process to those who may have been misclassified as ineligible. To this court, the answer to each of those questions is ‘no,’” Myers added.
Riggs, an appointed incumbent, continued to serve on the state Supreme Court during the ongoing legal dispute. Griffin continued his work as a state Appeals Court judge.
Griffin challenged more than 65,000 ballots counted in the final tally from Nov 5. A January order from Riggs’ state Supreme Court colleagues blocked the elections board from declaring Riggs as the winner. The state Supreme Court’s April order allowed more than 60,000 of the challenged ballots to remain in the vote count. Those ballots were tied to voters who appeared to have incomplete registration records.
Riggs, the elections board, the state Democratic Party, and other outside groups urged Myers to rule that federal law prevents election officials from tossing any votes at this stage in the electoral process. Meanwhile, Griffin called on Myers to allow the state Supreme Court’s decision to stand.
Riggs’ lawyers urged Myers not to let the “volume of filings” in the case distract him from the “straightforward questions” he must address.
“Changing the election rules after the votes have been cast and counted is wrong and unconstitutional,” Riggs’ lawyers wrote. “So too is targeting military and overseas voters who happened to register in a Democratic-leaning county.”
“Judge Griffin wants to avoid those common-sense principles of federal law,” the brief continued. “But he must confront them. He cannot overturn his election loss without convincing a court that federal law permits retroactive, selective changes to the voting rules. The North Carolina courts did not decide those federal questions because this Court retained jurisdiction over them. Those questions are now for this Court to decide.”
“This Court should stop this dangerous effort to undermine the will of the people,” Riggs’ lawyers added.
The post Griffin concedes NC Supreme Court election loss to Riggs first appeared on Carolina Journal.