Tuesday’s ruling by the North Carolina Supreme Court prevents state authorities from accrediting the Democratic nominee as the victor of a close contest for the state’s highest court.
In a 5-1 decision, the state Supreme Court’s Republican majority decided to block the North Carolina State Board of Elections from certifying the election’s results, which show Democratic Justice Allison Riggs leading Republican Jefferson Griffin by 734 votes. Riggs did not participate in Tuesday’s order.
Griffin’s appeal to have 60,000 votes removed from the race can now be heard by the justices of the court he wants to join.
The decision promised to resolve the matter quickly and provided a timeline that requires all case briefs to be submitted by January 24. After that date, the case would be expected to be decided.
A string of recounts resulted from Riggs, who was appointed to the state Supreme Court in 2023, emerging from Election Day with a slim lead over Griffin. Out of over 5.5 million votes cast, Riggs led Griffin by 734 votes in both a partial manual recount and a full machine recount.
Griffin then filed hundreds of lawsuits in all 100 counties of North Carolina, alleging that about 60,000 people had cast illegitimate ballots. Many of those voters, according to Griffin’s and the North Carolina Republican Party’s attorneys, did not have a Social Security number or driver’s license number on file in their voter registration records. The accusations also concerned foreign voters who did not provide a photo ID with their ballots and had not resided in North Carolina.
But last month, Griffin’s three types of protests were turned down by the state elections board, which is 3-2 Democratic. Griffin then requested that his challenges be heard by the state Supreme Court.
Because the North Carolina Democratic Party had prematurely filed a federal complaint in December to ensure that all ballots in the election were tallied, the case was first heard in federal court.
However, the federal judge presiding over the case—who is an appointment of President-elect Donald Trump—sided with Griffin’s request on Monday and returned it to the state level. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has received an appeal of that ruling from the North Carolina board of elections, but preliminary briefs have not been set for February.
The state Supreme Court’s five Republican justices said in a brief order on Tuesday that it would allow Griffin’s request to have the election’s certification blocked so it could assess the allegations pertaining to the 60,000 votes because the federal court had remitted the matter back to the state level.
In a dissenting opinion, the only Democrat on the high court who cast a vote on the case stated that the requirements for a temporary stay had not been fulfilled in this case, that there was no chance of success on the merits, and that the public interest demanded that the Court refrain from interfering with the regular course of democratic processes as established by statute and the state constitution.
In response to the most recent event, Democrats in North Carolina attacked Griffin and the Republicans on the state Supreme Court.
Roy Cooper, the former governor, wrote on X that Republicans are unhappy with the results and want to throw thousands of legitimate votes in the garbage.
Cooper argued that this should not be about party politics but rather about ensuring that every vote matters and that our elections continue to have significance.
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