As of now, the decision on what to do with a losing candidate’s efforts to retroactively disqualify 60,000 citizen voters in North Carolina’s November 2024 elections remains in the hands of a federal court judge.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Myers II has received responses from the parties regarding what to do with losing candidate Jefferson Griffin’s request to block state certification of winning Supreme Court candidate Allison Riggs’ election. Unless he issues an injunction against that certification or returns the case to NC state court for consideration, the NC State Board of Elections could certify Justice Riggs’ victory within days.
Bipartisan Call to Reject Challenge
Bipartisan support for blocking Griffin’s unprecedented and anti-democratic request has grown since he initiated it in November. Most recently, a bipartisan group of former members of U.S. Congress and Senators who helped pass major federal voting rights legislation have weighed in. In a brief filed with Judge Myers’ court, they urged him to retain jurisdiction of the case and decide the matter now.
They point out that North Carolina has a single voter registration system and forms for both federal and state elections, and it is important to have a single national standard for what federal voting rights legislation means. “It makes no difference to this analysis that this case involves an election for a state, rather than federal, office,” the bipartisan group argued in their brief. “Judge Griffin therefore cannot escape HAVA [Help America Vote Act] by adverting to the fact that this dispute concerns a state election.”
NCLCV endorsed Justice Allison Riggs in the 2024 general election.
Judge Myers’ ruling in this case could come at any time.