NC justice can be sworn in after 6-month court battle over top court seat
A Republican who narrowly lost a North Carolina Supreme Court election ended his challenge to the results Wednesday, clearing the way for the Democratic incumbent to be sworn in six months after she won the race.
Justice Allison Riggs, who was appointed to the court by a Democratic governor in 2023, won the November election by 734 votes out of 5.5 million cast. Two recounts confirmed her victory. Jefferson Griffin, the Republican appeals court judge who ran against Riggs, went to court to challenge tens of thousands of votes to try to reverse the results.
The state Supreme Court gave Griffin a partial victory last month, raising the possibility that hundreds or even thousands of votes could be discounted. Riggs then took the matter to federal court, and a judge issued a decision Monday that said the rules of the election could not be changed after the fact.
He ordered state election officials to certify the election for Riggs, but paused his order for a week to give Griffin a chance to appeal. On Wednesday, Griffin said he would not appeal the decision, setting the stage for Riggs’s victory to be certified.
“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. “I will not appeal the court’s decision.”
His announcement ends the six-month legal saga and preserves the current makeup of the state Supreme Court, where Republicans hold a 5-2 advantage.
In a statement, Riggs said she was pleased Griffin was ending his legal challenge but believed it had caused “immeasurable damage” to democracy.
“It’s been my honor to lead this fight - even though it should never have happened - and I’m in awe of the North Carolinians whose courage reminds us all that we can use our voices to hold accountable any politician who seeks to take power out of the hands of the people,” she said.
Riggs remained on the court while the legal fight played out, but she did not participate as a justice in the challenge to her race.
The state Supreme Court’s decision last month would have required hundreds and perhaps thousands of military and overseas voters to provide copies of their IDs or have their votes struck from the total. That ruling also said hundreds of overseas voters could not have their votes counted if they indicated they had never lived in North Carolina.
But Richard E. Myers II, chief judge for the federal Eastern District of North Carolina, ordered that the election had to be certified based on the results of the recounts.
“You establish the rules before the game,” wrote Myers, who was appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump. “You don’t change them after the game is done.”
Griffin also challenged more than 60,000 ballots from voters who do not have Social Security numbers or other identification numbers on file with election officials. The state Supreme Court rejected Griffin’s challenges to those ballots.
University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias said he considers the resolution of the case to be fair but believes the prolonged legal challenge eroded voters’ faith in democracy. He said he fears other candidates will follow the same path and run to court instead of conceding when they lose.
“The concern, I think, is that people could use this as a road map,” he said. “People who lose close races may well look at this and say, ‘Well, I can try it, what’s to lose?’”
Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, in a statement accused Republicans of trying to “hijack” the election and warned them not to try it again. “May this saga be a lesson to Republicans everywhere: If you try to undermine the will of the voters, you will lose,” he said.
In a social media post, the North Carolina Republican Party argued that election officials had not properly maintained voters’ data and praised Griffin for demonstrating “integrity, courage, and a steadfast commitment to the rule of law.”
The conclusion of the election lawsuit comes a week after Republicans took the reins of the state elections board amid a separate legal dispute over who can appoint board members. Had Griffin’s challenge continued, the elections board could have had a crucial role in deciding which ballots to count and which ones to toss.
GOP state lawmakers recently gave the power to appoint elections board members to the Republican state auditor instead of the Democratic governor. The dispute over the elections board is ongoing and expected to be resolved by the state Supreme Court.
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