It’s been a month and a half since our last update on the North Carolina Supreme Court race primarily for two reasons: 1) nearly three months after Election Day, it remains undecided and 2) it’s been a battle of wills in various courtrooms between the GOP candidate, Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin and his Democrat opponent, state Associate Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs.
Here’s a quick recap/refresher on how we got to this point before we get to the latest developments:
The morning after the election, Griffin was up by around 10,000 votes, only to see his lead evaporate to a deficit of just over 700 votes over the next two weeks as county election boards researched provisional ballots and counted overseas/military absentee ballots, the latter of which were allowed to come in through November 14th.
Concerns were raised when the original ten-day deadline for completion of final results (11/15) had to be extended several days per the partisan Democrat-controlled State Board of Elections because some counties including one semi-large one that went for Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris weren’t done.
READ MORE: What’s Going On? Terrible Optics From NC Board of Elections As Supreme Court Race Still Not Decided
Griffin gained no ground during the recount process, which left Riggs ahead by 734 votes. The partial hand recount Griffin also requested in early December didn’t change anything, either, with Riggs maintaining her slim lead.
Griffin has sought to challenge the validity of nearly 65,000 votes for various reasons, and among them were voters who Griffin’s legal team said had incorrect/incomplete voter registration information or didn’t include a photo ID (the latter of which are related to overseas absentee ballots, including some who have never lived in the state):
Most of the ballots being challenged by Griffin were cast by voters whose registration records lacked either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number. A state law has required that such numbers be collected in registration applications since 2004.
Other ballots at issue were cast by thousands of military or overseas voters who did not provide copies of photo identification with their ballots; and by fewer than 300 overseas voters who have never lived in the U.S. but whose parents were deemed North Carolina residents. Riggs and the board say the ballots that Griffin is challenging were lawfully cast. Republicans backing Griffin, a state Court of Appeals judge, said his challenge is about election integrity.
In mid-December, the Board of Elections opted to include those ballots in their final vote totals, which set the stage for the courtapalooza that has taken place since that time, with this case at various points being before the Wake County Superior Court, the North Carolina Supreme Court, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of NC, and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In essence, the case is being tried federally and at the state level at the same time, as Riggs, the Board of Elections, and clients/voter groups represented by Dem super-lawyer Marc Elias’s law firm believe the vote challenges are a federal matter. Griffin, on the other hand, believes these issues should be resolved by the state since they involve state election laws and what they believe are “unsettled issues” by the board related to those laws.
On Monday, the Fourth Circuit heard oral arguments from both sides:
Thompson urged the 4th Circuit to do nothing that would remove the state Supreme Court’s temporary stay.
Appellate Judges Paul Niemeyer, Marvin Quattlebaum, and Toby Heytens must decide whether US Chief District Judge Richard Myers made a mistake on Jan. 6 when he sent the case from federal court back to state court, where Griffin originally filed suit on Dec. 18. The state elections board had removed the case from state court to federal court the following day.
If appellate judges agree that Myers should have kept the case, they must decide how he should proceed moving forward.
“Judge Griffin’s extraordinary request to retroactively change longstanding election rules, and thereby disenfranchise more than 60,000 North Carolina voters, should confront the federal civil rights laws in a federal forum as Congress intended,” argued Nick Brod, representing the State Board of Elections.
[…]
Will Thompson, representing Griffin, argued that the state Supreme Court mooted the entire 4th Circuit case last week by rejecting Griffin’s request for a writ of prohibition. Thompson’s argument prompted a series of questions from Heytens, including a question about why Griffin had filed no motion to dismiss the 4th Circuit appeal.
While this wouldn’t be the first time a statewide race in the Old North State took several months to decide, the potential national implications from this case depending on who wins it has led Democrats, their affiliated special interest groups, and of course the national media to hit the panic button, with the allegations (and billboards) flying that Griffin is trying to “steal” the election by allegedly disenfranchising voters including members of the military as well as some voters who claim they voted for both him and President Donald Trump.
The current make-up of the state Supreme Court is 5-2 GOP, with Riggs being one of the two Democrats. Democrats hope to be able to flip the court back to their control in 2028 where there will be three GOP justices on the ballot, and a Riggs victory obviously would be crucial to that effort.
Relatedly, the state GOP and the national RNC have a separate case before the courts over the same ballots Griffin is challenging.
It’s impossible to predict how this is going to play out, but we’ll keep an eye out and provide any relevant updates.
