A federal judge on Monday began a battle over the election to fill the seat Supreme Court of North Carolina back to the highest state court.
The North Carolina Supreme Court on Tuesday then blocked the certification of the election results between Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs and GOP challenger Jefferson Griffin.
Griffin lost general electionsand two recounts later, one statewide machine count and a partial recount of hand-to-eye ballots from randomly selected early voting and Election Day polling places in each county, still showed Riggs leading, according to WUNC- in. The results show the Democrat leading by just 734 votes out of more than 5.5 million ballots cast, but Riggs claims 60,000 ballots should be voided.
The eventual winner gets an eight-year term on the Supreme Court, where five of the seven current justices are registered Republicans.
Most of the ballots that Griffin is challenging came from voters whose registration records were missing a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number — which state law has required to appear on registration applications since 2004. Before the federal Help America Vote Act or HAVA in 2002, voter registration forms did not clearly require people to provide the last four digits of their Social Security number or their driver’s license number.
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It is, though still legal to vote in cases where the last four digits of a person’s social security number or driver’s license cannot be verified. People can still present a HAVA document, such as a utility bill, and the state election office is required to assign that person a special identification number to register to vote, according to WUNC.
North Carolina Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin and North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs. (North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts via AP)
The other large categories of votes Griffin is challenging are foreign-born voters who have never lived in the U.S. but whose parents are considered North Carolinians, and military or foreign-born voters who did not provide copies of photo identification with their ballots. In accordance with federal law, the state administrative code says overseas voters are exempt from that requirement, WUNC reported.
Attorneys for Griffin, who is a judge on the state’s Intermediate Court of Appeals, initially asked the state Supreme Court to intervene three weeks ago.
But the election board quickly moved the matter to federal court, saying Griffin’s appeals involved federal voting and voting rights law issues.
Griffin disagreed, and neither did U.S. District Judge Richard Myers, who sent the case back to the state Supreme Court on Monday.
Myers — who was nominated for the presidency by Donald Trump — wrote that Griffin’s protests raised “unresolved issues of state law” and had tenuous connections to federal law.
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North Carolina Democratic State Chairman Anderson Clayton, left, speaks at a news conference about the upcoming state Supreme Court election Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024, on Capitol Square in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Gary D. Robertson)
Hours later, Griffin’s attorneys asked the state Supreme Court for a temporary stay, which the court granted.
“Absent a federal court stay, this matter should be resolved expeditiously as it relates to the certification of an election,” Tuesday’s order said.
The order said that Riggs had recused herself from the case and that Judge Anita Earls, another Democrat on the court, had opposed the suspension in part because “the public interest requires that the court not interfere with the normal course of democratic processes as established by statute and the state constitution.” .
Attorneys for the State Board of Elections and Riggs quickly filed notices of appeal of Myers’ decision with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Later Tuesday, the state board asked an appeals court to order Myers to withdraw the case from the state Supreme Court and block its return to state court pending an appeal.
Barring the intervention of federal appeals judges, the Republican-majority state Supreme Court would effectively be asked to decide a winner for one of its seats.
Voters cast their ballots at their voting booths inside an early voting site on October 17, 2024 in Hendersonville, North Carolina, following Hurricane Helena. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)
The state Board of Elections rejected Griffin’s written protests challenging the ballots last month. This triggered a time frame in which the board would issue a confirmation confirming Riggs’ election this Friday – ending the litigation – unless the court steps in. Tuesday’s order halts such certification and tells Griffin and the board to submit legal briefs to judges over the next two weeks.
Democratic allies of Riggs have accused Griffin and the Republican Party of trying to overturn legitimate election results.
Riggs “deserves his confirmation of election, and we are only in this position because Jefferson Griffin refuses to accept the will of the people,” Democratic Party Chairman Anderson Clayton said in a statement.
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The state board of elections that rejected Griffin’s protests is made up of three Democrats and two Republicans.
The Supreme Court in America’s ninth-largest state has been a flashpoint for the parties in recent years in court battles involving redistricting, photo voter identification and other voting rights.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
